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Woman Fed To Dogs: Taslim Solangi and an End to Civility

November 10, 2008 – 3:25 am

Taslim Solangi, an 8 months pregnant Pakistani teen from Khairpur, was forced to give birth prematurely and then was thrown in front of a pack of dogs, all of this because her father-in-law claimed that the child she was expecting was out of wedlock.

Purported allegations of infidelity and adultery against her were enough for the in-laws, in cohorts with the local populace, to mete out this depraved form of tribal justice. Perpetrators of this barbaric act are yet to be captured by the local police even though the accused, while labeled as absconded, has openly made threats about killing the lynched teen’s mother. The baby, meanwhile, was disposed off in a canal.

News reports indicate that her father-in-law, Zamir Solangi, who is responsible for this gruesome act, took the pregnant girl from her mother’s and subsequently swore of the Holy Quran that he wouldn’t harm her. Religion and patriarchy make a fairly toxic cocktail in the Indian sub-continent and the ignorant masses are only too pleased to gulp it down by the gallon.

By Feature Writer | Posted in Current Affairs, crime, human rights, south asia, women | Comments (20)

Where Chili Powder-Aided Gang Rape Counts as “Molestation”

September 29, 2008 – 8:01 am

Loud silences really don’t convey much except a sense of defeat. This is more than apt in case of the historical Khairlanji verdict meted out in a sleepy town in western India, not too far away from the bustling metropolis known as Bombay, a place I call home.

In a country that’s replete with as many sexual assault cases as the number of babies born per minute, heinous crimes are everywhere, but one particular heinous crime has recently stood out from the rest.

Giving its verdict in the 2006 Khairlanji case, the Sessions court has held eight people guilty of murder. It has, however, acquitted three.

The Indian legal system usually makes for a perfectly submissive flogging partner, given the amount of beating it enjoys from barbaric scoundrels who repeatedly flaunt their entitled dicks in its face.

This time though, it’s done fairly well for itself. Yet, some problems remain obvious.

Let’s provide some background on why the court ruling still involves a heavy dose of B.S.: Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Society, death penalty, feminism, human rights, rape, south asia, women | Comments (11)

MTV Ukraine Makes a Mockery of Domestic Violence

September 17, 2008 – 3:27 pm

Last weekend, I was sitting in a restaurant in Kyiv, eating barbecue wings, and witnessing a new low in the world of Ukrainian media.

The recently launched MTV Ukraine was showing a translated program - it had something to do with hip hop. At the bottom of the screen there was listed something called “The Topic of the Day” - which is basically a question one can answer by texting an SMS to a certain number, if one is bored enough, I suppose. The answers themselves were being fed directly onto the TV screen.

Though I found it hard to believe at first, the topic was “Can you beat girls?”

Yep, there it was, staring me in the face.

I went up to the TV screen and snapped a couple of pictures with my phone. Meanwhile, my table companions quickly became animated as they realized what I was reacting to.

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in Columnist, Entertainment, Society, europe, feminism, human rights, women | Comments (14)

Chasing The Flame: A Review

June 18, 2008 – 11:54 am

This is a review of Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World by Samantha Power. Allen Lane, 2008.

Most United Nations officials do not make for engrossing literary subjects. Samantha Power, however, has found an exception. The Yale-educated Harvard Law Professor was previously awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for her work “A problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide”. She recently served as a foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, but resigned after suggesting that Hilary Clinton is a “Monster”.

Power’s latest book is about Sergio Viera de Mello, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Iraq, who died tragically in 2003.

One hardly expects a book devoted to a UN official to be an engrossing read. However, Power does a brilliant job, crafting a compelling biography. Not only does she show the witty and romantic side of Vieira de Mello, but she fully illustrates Mello’s experiences when it comes to the reconstruction of war-torn countries, painting a detailed picture of both success and failure.

This book illustrates the clash of pragmatism and principles. Power highlights the complexities of Vieira de Mello’s career and personal growth: he was both an idealist and someone who sat down at a dinner table with the Khmer Rouge if he thought it practical.

Vieira de Mello’s life makes for a mesmerizing narrative. A life-long philosophy student, he got out of the ivory tower and took on the world. He was also a bureaucrat who freely exhibited basic human kindness and charm. And finally, a man who worked toward peace - and died as the result of a suicide bombing.

One can hope that Barack Obama will read Samantha Power’s excellent biography of this excellent, if complicated, figure. There are many lessons to be learned from the life, and death, of Sergio Vieira de Mello.

By Jonathan Mok | Posted in book reviews, middle east, politics, terrorism | Comments (0)

Another Father, Gone Missing & The War

February 4, 2008 – 3:21 am

Dear Darling Readers,

These two poems are presented here together, because they are meant to compliment one another.

Mustapha Marrouchi is as glorious, and grave, as ever. It is a privilege to continue publishing his work, especially in these present, grotesque times.

I hope you appreciate. In fact, I know you will (I am arrogant, and hopeful, like that).

- The Editor

Another Father, Gone Missing

Her father,
goes the story,
is caught in a crowd of day laborers–
known to cluster at the driveway of the US Embassy in Baghdad–
and is swept into the back of a truck,
mistaken,
perhaps,
for a subdivision carpenter,
someone grimly determined to support his family.

The stocky men in the truck are cheerful and talkative,
and they motor up a smooth road into the hillside
where a severe beating occurs. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, poetry | Comments (2)

Politics and Tragedy

January 13, 2008 – 11:28 am

Wherein lies the tragedy of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination?

Common wisdom holds that the implications surrounding the demise of one of Pakistan’s major democratic leaders are tragic. Others hold that her killing reveals the sinister confluence of wicked forces at work in Pakistan.

Others hold that that the tragedy lies in the fact that she comes from a family that has lost far too many of its sons and daughters. Others hold that the tragedy lies in the loss that will be felt by her young children.

But what if we simply refused to assign any form of tragedy to Bhutto’s killing? What if we said: it is tragic that another human being has been killed, and that is all I have to say.

Why should I exalt the tragedy of Bhutto’s death, when I rarely exalt the tragedy of anyone else’s death? Why does she get this preferential treatment? Simply because she was involved in politics?

Nietzsche said that most ancient Greeks didn’t care about politics. They believed that they were utterly incapable of affecting the decision-making in which the powerful engaged, opting, therefore, to busy themselves with other things: things upon which they could have direct influence, namely art.

Why do we modern people think that politics have changed? Read More »

By Ali Eteraz | Posted in Columnist, Current Affairs, south asia, terrorism | Comments (3)

The Mindless Menace of Violence in the Muslim World

December 29, 2007 – 2:18 am

One more act of senseless violence greets us in the Muslim world this week. One more suicide bomber or assassin, or whatever we can call them these days, kills others and himself in a moment of premeditated madness.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is tragic. There can be no doubt about that. But what shocks me today, as I am shocked on a daily basis with the stream of murders and suicides in Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, and so many other countries is this nagging question: Where on earth do they find them?? Where on earth do the plotters and schemers find so many willing men and women of young age to mould into their insane vision of the world? How did those who planned this latest act of violence stumble upon this latest specimen of misguided fervour and convince him (at least it seems to be a him at the time of writing) to go and end his life by assassinating a mother of three children. How did they get through to this guy? And more importantly, why is it so goddamn easy to find self-terminating assassins in our region?

I am outraged as I was outraged on the day I witnessed the mothers, fathers and grandfathers grieving for their loved ones in an Amman hospital after the massacres of the inverted 9/11 (in Jordan, it was 11/9 if one follows the American date method, and proof that the killers and blood suckers infesting our region have a rather bizarre and morbid sense of humour that, I guess, makes some weird sense to the lunatics in our midst).

I am as outraged as I was in the summer of 2005 when a bunch of lunatics in Sharm El Sheikh drove their bomb-laden cars into a crowd of underpaid workers who apparently were not allowed the simple pleasure of a cup of coffee at the end of a long working day.

I am outraged as I was when I heard this last summer that a Jordanian Neurosurgeon thought that the best way to make use of his years of study and research is to go and bomb the world and all that is in it outside the Tiger Tiger club in Piccadilly.

Now, some of the readers will say: “Oh, come on, that’s not totally accurate; you are comparing the murders of innocent civilians with a targeted assassination of a leader who some Pakistanis discredit … etc.” But that is not the point. Read More »

By Nasser Ali Khasawneh | Posted in Columnist, Current Affairs, Religion, islam, south asia, terrorism | Comments (15)

Slave to Fate and desperate men

November 19, 2007 – 5:00 pm

On July 1, 2002 a Bashkirian Airlines passenger plane and a DHL cargo jet collided over the German countryside. Eyewitnesses reported seeing fire in the sky, a noise like thunder stirred the sleeping in their beds, and any desperate hopes for survivors were quickly abandoned. Seventy-one people lost their lives, most of them Russian children on a UNESCO-sponsored trip to Barcelona. Architect Vitaly Kaloev, a Russian citizen then living in Spain, lost his entire family: wife Svetlana, and two children, Diana, four, and Konstantin, ten (do NOT Google pictures of that family if you value your composure, the children are so… so… Well, you know how it goes).

In 2004, Kaloyev traveled to Switzerland, demanding a personal apology from Skyguide, the air traffic control company that admitted responsibility for the crash. Unsuccessful in his attempt to meet with then-Skyguide bigwig Alain Rossier (how dare some guy who lost his entire family ask for an audience with His Holiness the CEO? - That’s the way the world works, it seems), Kaloyev traveled to the home of Peter Nielsen, the only man on air traffic control duty at the time of the crash (Nielsen’s partner had gone on break). An altercation ensued, and Nielsen was stabbed to death in front of his family.

Although convicted of murder, Vitaly Kaloyev was recently released by Switzerland’s highest court. His sentence was shortened, and he was then cited as having completed two-thirds of it already. Last week, Kaloyev got a raucous welcome in Moscow’s Domodedovo airport. People who had never met him held up signs reading “You’re a real human being!” Kaloyev’s first order of business was to visit the family graves.

The Russian press has called what happened in 2002 “murder.” I don’t quite agree. Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in Columnist, Current Affairs | Comments (3)

Hit, then Spit

May 12, 2007 – 9:00 pm

The lead soldier has a moustache,
just like Arrouj’s.
Neat, well trimmed,
it arcs around his fat upper lip and stops just an inch above his pointy, hairless chin.
He pushes Arrouj into the living room with one hand.
He already considers him weak, vulnerable. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, poetry | Comments (0)

Vile Chorus

February 22, 2007 – 9:02 pm

Si Mimouni was kind
and friendly and open and good-looking.
He was also reputed to be really smart.
One of my friends knew him from home
so he often stopped to talk to us.
He was a new breed of teacher;
he had studied in Paris. Read More »