Archive for
March 9th, 2009
Stories
Egypt: Mostafa Hussein shreds the Honor Legacy
Honor, honor crimes, female genital mutilation (FGM), and virginity are deeply rooted concepts in the Egyptian culture. Call them heritage, legacy, or traditions , Mostafa Hussein brilliantly feeds them into the shredder.
The headline of his post says it all:
Men are never sure who is the real father of their offspring. This created the legacy of honour.
I have written previously here about the four anti-child abuse laws and how they were aborted and here about the call to mutilate more women when
Deputy Mohamed Al Omda dragged his three little girls and his mother to the People's Assembly street where they demonstrated silently against the new children's law. MB representative Dr. Abdel Hameed Zaghloul and some other ladies joined them and they all held banners and signs warning against the new laws.
Ami Isseroff commented on both issues saying
The “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood fought the good fight, but owing to the undemocratic nature of the Egyptian government, they were unable to block laws that forbid female genital mutilation and will not register marriages to minors.
ISIS wrote about Facebook honor killings
A Saudi woman was beaten and shot by her father after being caught while chatting with a man on Facebook. This is a typical case of honor murder whereby a woman, discovered to associate with another man, is murdered by her family members as punishment for “denigrating the honor of family.” Punishable acts, once limited to offline relationships, such as having a kiss, sleeping together, and sharing a table, have now expanded to online relations.
ISIS also tackled how FGM Kills here after a little girl lost her life:
The interesting thing about this incident is that the doctor who agreed to perform the surgery is the one taking all the legal blame… The girl's family are getting tons of support from the Childhood and Motherhood Council, which is headed by Tante Moushira Khattab. The doctor who agreed to perform the operation coincidently happens to be a woman. She's taking all the blame! and after the issue of FGM got a lot of attention because of this incident the health minister issued a decree outlawing the procedure completely… The previous law allowed for the procedure for ‘cosmetic' or ‘medical' reasons… The new law supposedly puts a complete ban on the procedure rather than just take measures against it… The one that is liable is the one performing the surgery, be it a midwife or a physician. Excuze me!! But who took the girl to the doctor in the first place? Isn't the family considered an accomplice?
Back to Mostafa Hussein who said that he was no expert on that issue but common sense lead him to conclude that
Females have a critical advantage over males because they own the means of producing offspring. They are always sure that their kids are theirs. That their offspring carry their own genes. Both, however, are not programmed to care much about who was responsible for the other half of the genetic load carried by their child.
Fish don't care much about their offspring. A male fish will fertilize the eggs by spraying some sperm over a collection of fish eggs. A male fish will be proud of its fatherly duties for a second or so.
Then he introduces the concept of honor
Honour, that is women's virtue and chastity, is, in my opinion (I am sure this is not a new thing), an invention by men to make sure they are not raising children that are not their own.
How can they control it?
From dress codes to the acceptability of honour killings. Moral mechanisms were put forward by religious people, politicians and law makers across history.
For example
A modest dress or a dress that will not be revealing to a woman's body will, supposedly, be inviting for other males thus increasing the chances that women collectively, in a given society, have a higher risk of being impregnated by someone else. This idea is concealed in a mixture of both honour, religion and acceptance.
Mostafa also talked about FGM, virginity and honor killings describing them as
mechanisms [that] are more twisted, suppressive or bloody.
Finally
Men decided to be unmoved about men who kill their own wives while she was in an act that ‘disturbs the fabric of society' to, indirectly, warn women of how a society ruled by men will not tolerate kids that are not their own.
But he thinks that
these futile mechanisms (they are futile because men will still not be really sure that the kids are theirs) are more common in societies that find raising a child more costly and ruled by men.
International Women's Day: “All women are queens”
Yesterday was International Women's Day, and francophone bloggers around the world used music, poetry and art to honor the beauty, achievements, and continuing struggles of women.
In Martinique, Imaniyé [Fr] marks International Women's Day by posting this video by Senegalese singer, Ismael Lo:
China: Banning Shanzhai Culture?
Ni ping (倪萍), a famous CCTV host actress and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) put forward a suggestion for banning “Shanzhai phenomena” （山寨現象） in the recent CPPCC meeting.
The term Shanzhai becomes popular last year when a netizen, Lao Meng, decided to hold a Shanzhai Spring Festival Gala online. However, because of unknown pressure, the venue booking for the event was cancelled and the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) demanded all media stop reporting on Shanzhai Gala.
However, Shanzhai culture continues to move on. As the CCTV Consumer TV program, March 15 Gala (3.15 晚會), is approaching, a Hunan rights activist, Zhang Hongfeng (張洪峰）, has decided to hold a March 15 Shanzhai Gala. Zhang said that he will release a people's investigation on fake consumer product in the Shanzhai Gala. (via people.com.cn)
Ni Ping's proposal to block Shanzhai culture and phenomena seems to provide more official legitimacy for blocking the above initiatives. In the past few days, Ni's proposal has become a hot topic and drawn a lot of debate and discussion in the past few days.
The term Shanzhai has several meanings various from armed mountain village, to small home-based factory, to copycat production. Ni Ping stressed that she referred to Shanzhai as copycat production, however, since she has been acting as the host of CCTV's Spring Festival Gala, her definition of copycat is in question (as Shanzhai Gala is far from a copycat production). Moreover, as recent anti-smut campaign has turned into political censorship, anti-Shanzhai campaign can become another threat to online free speech and expression.
According to local news report, Ni Ping has put forward 7 suggestions to stop Shanzhai's culture in the CPPCC meeing, and she said (via Tianya forum):
我是坚决反对山寨文化的，我认为法律上应该对此有明确规范。现在的年轻人都被所谓的‘山寨文化’影响得很厉害，认为这就是‘草根文化’的代表。但到底什么是真什么是假，什么是真善美什么是假恶丑，我们应该给年轻人更健康的教育。
“山寨”这个风刮得太猖獗了，网上到处都是，遍地泛滥，尤其很多未成年人都能上网，他们不知道哪个是真的哪个是假的。“山寨文化”假的多、复制的多、盗版的多。最可怕的是所谓的“山寨”都打着民间文化与草根的旗号，但干的完全不是一样的事情，很多都是盗版、造假。
明星被“山寨”不是最重要的，关键是“山寨”中有很多盗版，所以要反对“山寨”文化和“山寨现象”，要从法律上和行政上采取手段，立法制止，同时从舆论上给予制止。
Below is a selection of reactions in the Tianya's post:
Gongzhoufu:
倪大妈还是管管自己刚割的‘山寨双眼皮’吧！
Kylelove:
这就是屁眼当代表的表现之一啊,保就业?她就不知道中国的山寨商家养了多少人,明显的两个相反的提案也好意思往上提.
kewell2002:
呵呵~~山寨和盗版明显是两回事~~
封杀ADIDSA容易~~封杀山寨春晚难哦~
It is easy to kill ADIDSA, but it would be difficult to kill Shanzhai Spring Festival Gala.
好江山的人 Great country people:
倪萍呀,你别担心呀,从来就不会有人山寨你呀!
百家争鸣,百花齐放的道理都不懂吗?
你太CCTV了!
How come you don't even understand the principle of let thousand flowers bloom.
You are too CCTV!
你很低俗 You are vulgar:
我们山寨了西方民主，不过西方民主也山寨了我们周朝的共和。我们山寨了洋牌手机，我们山寨了核武器，但是我们不能山寨春晚。
春心曉夢 Spring morning dream:
现在的代表呀，把吃饭拉屎的屁事都提了，可没有一个够胆提议如何惩治贪污腐败的问题，不知道他们代表的是谁？！
xxhujun:
当年国军是正规军，共军是真正的“山寨”军哦！
百萬夢想 million dreams:
封吧，以后不叫山寨，叫牛寨，或天寨，换个称呼罢了
China: Most wanted fugitive now blogging?
Road to the most wanted fugitive
As the mastermind of the largest smuggling ring ever, whose enterprise amounts to 10 billion dollars, Lai Changxing is a legendary criminal, also a controversial public figure in China. Before he fled to Canada when the central government was determined to root out his kingdom, he is indisputable the most powerful man in Xiamen, a rich coastal city. He has smuggled in numerous luxury cars and tanker-loads of oil. In 1997, one single year, 10% oil the entire China consumed was imported through his enterprise. More than that, cigarettes, cooking oil, TVs and many other items are on his smuggling list as well.
Though only with grade school diploma, he overawed, corrupted and controlled almost the entire local bureaucrat, particularly the custom system.
It is rare in China that a businessman's power can override that of the government, But Mr. Lai seems to be an exception. The amazing wealth and his “generosity” is the key. He used to claim, that “I fear no government cadres, what I fear is that the cadres have no desire.” As long as a man has desire, in Lai's mind, he is subject to manipulation.
He owns a mysterious building called “red chamber”, which is actually a luxury club where he makes the cadres feel like in paradise. In a few years, Lai has managed to weave so strong a network of umbrella, that in the investigation, 700 officials, including Li Jizhou, the Deputy Minister of Public Security in Beijing, and Lan Pu, the vice mayor of Xiamen, were found bribed by Lai. If it were not a phone call from one of his friend in Public Security, Lai would have been captured and sentenced to death, rather than being a fugitive now in Canada.
Since then, he has been threatened by extradition all the time. His staying in Canada has become a sensitive point of China-Canada relationship. Losing his aura, how is his life like today?
TIME has interviewed him, showing his no-more-dazzling life in a unfamiliar foreign country; however, recently it seems that he himself is going to stand out to tell his own stories. He starts to blogs.
Lai blogging?
In KDNET, a popular discussion board, a post named “Lai is blogging, what is he trying to say?” showed up on March 3, which quickly draws great attention.
The name Lai Changxing itself is enough to be a headline. In 1999, stories about him almost filled newspapers everyday. Depicting him as an unforgivable sinner, however, it seems that the dark side of the Chinese bureaucrat is also relentlessly exposed.
In the post, a link directs people to a social networking website, like facebook, called That'sMetro. Named Fat-Xing, the blogger's first post is about his early life, which is completely consistent with that of Lai.
His second post is now more well-known, which is like an apology, also an accusation of the larger corruption and injustice ongoing in today's China.
He talks about smuggling
再说说走私。我理解的走私是把外国的好东西运到本国来，坏东西是没有人要运的(或者说走私的)。10多年前或者20多年前，走私的汽车也好，设备也好，电脑也好，只要走私的就代表高质量的。联想集团的柳大哥，你们公司是不是也是走私起家的？如果世界上没有贸易壁垒，能有走私吗？这就是我说的制度的漏洞。这种贸易壁垒，各个国家都有的，不过，西方国家抓到走私的，一般罚款为主，即使判刑也很轻的。因为走私没有损害他人的基本生存权利，没有剥夺任何人的生命权，最多是把财富进行再分配….
Let me talk about smuggling. My understanding is that smuggling is just to bring the good things from abroad to China. Nobody wants bad things. About a decade or two ago, all that is smuggled are of high quality. Mr. Liu (boss of Lenovo, the largest computer company in China), isn't your company also founded on smuggling? If there is no trade barrier in the world, would there still be smuggling? That's the loophole of our system.
In western countries, mostly smugglers are simply fined, because they doesn't hurt anyone's fundamental rights. It doesn't threaten people's life. At most it is a redistribution of wealth….
说到剥夺人的生命权，这不得不提及一个人，他就叫牛根生，蒙牛公司的老板。牛老板的生意就是杀人，剥夺人的生命权，老人不放过，年轻人不放过，特别是从娃娃杀起。
Here, he alludes to the melamine crisis not long ago, which kills several infants due to the illegal addition of chemicals in infant formula. In addition, Meng Niu was accused of using MOP, another chemical that is potential to cause cancer.
A unforgivable smuggler, or a businessman born in a wrong time?
The authenticity of the blog is not yet clear. There have been claims that the website is not trustworthy, because when the decapitation murder in Virgina Tech happened, the killer's blog is also said to be found there. Therefore, people doubt the blog is faked just for advertising for the website.
However, it is the comments left that are interesting. The unpardonable sinner in 1999, after 10 years' fugitive life, seems to have changed his impression on public's mind, becoming more and more amiable. A handful of comments express their deep compassion with Lai.
星哥，阮专程注册来顶你。但愿你身在他乡能幸福过日子，不再受迫害
牛逼党主席 said,
以前天天听老大的大名。终于有机会来回帖子。
一梦醒来，发现自己以前被愚的厉害
同样发现很多国人被渔民的厉害
肥仔，继续写博，偶们支持你的自由。
Waking up from dream, I found I have been fooled so much and so long before. So are many of my countrymen. Keep blogging, we now stand with your freedom.
2000年我正好在厦门，每天都要经过那幢你曾经引以为豪的大厦（可惜没完工），那时候每天听到最多的就是你的传奇故事，还有些有的没的传闻。不过我听到的90%的厦门市民对你都是有好感的…
I happened to be in Xiamen in 2000. I passed by the Red Chamber everyday, hearing all about your legend and anecdotes. I have also heard that 90% Xiamen citizens think you did good to them.
One of the reasons that Lai, a criminal supposed to be despised by the country but nevertheless favored by the public opinion now, is the low price of oil he used to bring about.
A dialogue blogger 百草止水 noted down in his blog reflects why a cab driver thinks Lai contributed to the oil price that used to be affordable, by competing with the state-control monopolies, CNPC and CPCC.
The oil price just started to climb up at the time. I was in a taxi chatting with the driver.
百草止水：师傅，现在油价上涨，您的油钱多开支不少吧？
司机：谁说不是呢，我们辛辛苦苦赚的钱，很大部分都送给石油公司了。
百草止水：其实石油公司也多赚不到多少钱，他们的炼油成本也涨，利润增加不了多少。
司机：你不懂，国际油价上涨，他们就立即上调油价；国际油价下跌，他们要延迟许久才会把油价降下来。这里面道道很多，他们怎么说都有理，老百姓搭不上话。
Driver: Yes, exactly. The money we labor to earn mostly go to the oil companies.
Blogger: But actually they don't earn much either, don't they? The crude oil is getting more expensive too, so not much profit can they actually gain.
Driver: No, you don't know the fact. They raise the price of product oil as soon as the international price goes up, but they fall far behind when the international price slumps. They control everything and we people can say nothing.
Hearing that, the blogger curiously mentioned that the two leading oil companies, CNPC and CPCC, have always been grumbling that the gap between the domestic and international oil price make them suffer from deep deficit. According to the complaint, they buy dear oil in global market, have it refined, and then sold petroleum products in a restrictively low price to Chinese people. The driver shot out a snort of disbelief.
司机：你想啊，如果国内油价比国外低，走私能赚钱吗？只有国内油价远远高于国际价格，才会有人甘冒杀头的危险去走私。赖昌星通过走私赚了数百亿元，钱从哪里来？不就是国内油价高出国际价格的部分吗？
Therefore, the driver concluded,
司机：所以啊，我们司机都非常喜欢赖昌星，中国有十个赖昌星，汽油价格非剧烈下跌不可，也就不会像现在这样昂贵了。
走私油冲击了国内燃油市场，从而迫使燃油掉价，老百姓就能得到实惠。
Blogger One-point-five's article echoes the argument, decrying the leading oil companies as shameful:
去年，中石化在实现净利润396亿元的情况下，同样借助炼油部分亏损向政府一次性“领取”补助100亿元。
Last year, CPCC, regardless of its 39.6-billion net profit, asked for 10 billion compensation from the government, claiming that it bought crude oil in high price while sell low in product oil.
The logical fallacy is that, if Lai can smuggle from abroad and earn enormously, there is no reason that the domestic oil price should be lower.
That's why on the internet, a post widely circulated is boldly named:
Russia: “Unsent Letter” on Health Care
Below is a partial translation of a post (RUS) on health care in Russia - a caustic “unsent letter” to the Russian president, written by LJ user sobe-panek on Feb. 22. The post has made it into the Top 30 at Yandex Blogs portal and was picked up by some Russian media.
[…] There is a town called Yelets in Lipetsk region. And there is the City Hospital #1 in the town of Yelets. There is a department of hemodialysis and gravitational blood surgery in this hospital. The only one in the whole town, by the way. Up until recently the department had its own room for its patients and was open 24 hours a day. Because of this, doctors and nurses were paid some extra money, in addition to their primary salaries: for working night shifts, holidays and weekends. Imagine how much the total bill ended up being. Too much money, horrible. […]
And so in summer (before any official news of the crisis, by the way), Lipetsk Regional Health Care Department found a way to save the Motherland some money. First, they took away the hemodialysis department's room, then canceled night shifts as well as Sunday and holiday shifts.
Of course, those irresponsible sick people started complaining right away. Like, they are having attacks of acute kidney failure not only on workdays from 8 AM to 5 PM, but at night, too, and even on holidays. And they started screaming that a person with kidney problems, who is having an attack on a Saturday evening, is unlikely to survive until Monday morning without hemodialysis. And they cited the recent death of a 20-year-old woman as an example. To make everyone feel sorry for them, of course…
Okay, so the woman died - failed to survive till Monday. And so what? The world has turned upside down?
Even if all the chronic patients of this department of the Yelets City Hospital die, the world isn't going to care. Because, truth be told, these patients are taking up space under the sun in vain. Judge for yourself, who needs those disabled people who are spending years waiting for kidney transplantation surgeries (which they'll never get) - no one needs them. Or those other patients of this department - drug addicts after an overdose. These are the scum of the earth, who needs them? And all those different poisoning patients? Mushroom poisoning or whatever. What do they need treatment for - it's all their fault: don't eat and drink indiscriminately.
And I'm not even talking about patients with chronic kidney failure, dear president. If these people led a healthy way of life, voted for United Russia, didn't attend the dissenters' rallies, didn't read all kinds of oppositional nonsense, didn't sign all kinds of letters (in defense and in protest) - would their kidneys fail? Of course, not.
So yes, in summer the medical staff of this department were relieved of their night shifts and of work on weekends and holidays. What would any normal person do in such a situation? Rejoice! And they - the medical staff - what are they doing? They are outraged. And are hiding behind their patients' interests.
Actually, what really got the medical professionals outraged were the salary cuts. What kind of cuts - ah, not a big deal at all.
Take my younger sister Anna, for example, who works as a nurse at this department, has 20 years of experience […] - before the crisis […] began, she was making about 5,000 rubles [approximately $200 a month at that time]. And now she is making 3,380 rubles [approximately $100]. What's the difference, right? No difference at all! She doesn't care whether she's making 3,400 or even 4,300, when the housing fee she has to pay is 4,200 [a month]. Even if she were making slightly over 5,000, she'd only have enough left to buy cat food.
If I were Lipetsk Regional Health Care Department, I'd be paying medical professionals no more than 1,000 rubles a month. Why would they need more? To survive till it's time for them to retire?
Look, dear president, how much money can be saved if we apply this nationwide. First, all medical professionals will die off, then all their patients will follow them. The state will at once get unbelievable profit on […]: a) money saved from salaries; b) money saved from unpaid disability payments; c) pensions; d) free medications… (Yes, yes, free - and what did you think? I don't know about other departments of this hospital, but in this hemodialysis department chronic patients are treated for free!)
Let's keep on counting: equipment, different kinds of medical devices, gloves and syringes, square meters of buildings occupied by some unneeded departments or even whole hospitals.
Why does the country need oncology clinics if cancer is incurable?
Why should our double-headed bear - sorry, slip of the tongue again - our eagle - take care of all those chronically disabled people, if they are no longer of any use to the state? And why do we need sick children? Better to give birth to new ones. Healthy ones…
Dear president, […], listen carefully to the opinion of the common folks. And pay attention to the progressive undertaking of Lipetsk Regional Health Care Department. And maybe we'll not just be able to overcome this damn crisis, but will come out of it with some profit.
[…]
UPD. I wrote this letter and was about to send it off (not in LJ, of course, but much further), but decided at the last moment to let my sister know.
So I called her. Warned her.
She says: “Are you crazy? They'll fire me!”
So what, I tell her, let them fire you. What are you losing? Three thousand rubles? It's not a salary, it's a humiliation. I'm ready to pay you 5,000, just to keep them from wiping their feet on you.
And my sister replies: You don't understand anything. I LOVE MY JOB VERY MUCH. I can't live without it. It has nothing to do with my salary…
Daaaaaamn!
The only thing left to do is [shrug]. It's also possible to be happy. For the country. For its president. And, separately, for Lipetsk Regional Health Care Department. And for Yelets medical professionals. And, of course, for Yelets chronic kidney disease patients…
P.S. Dear president, please, I'm begging you: cancel salaries for medical professionals all together. And please force some nurses (my sister, for example) to pay from their own pockets for the right to go to work. Because otherwise nothing will change in our country. Never.
Links for Mon, 2009-03
Congratulation to Ivoirian blogger Israel Yoroba, in Dakar this week to accept an award for best blog written by a West African journalist [Fr].
ICT For PeaceBuilding (ICT4PEACE) reported that TamilNet, a pro-LTTE news site was once again accessible after being blocked inside Sri Lanka in June 2007. But the good news only lasted 12 hours as it was blocked once again, the blog informs.
Saad Sarfraz Sheikh at Lahore Metblogs posts some photos and first hand accounts of the protests of the workers of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) against the Supreme Court (SC) verdict that disqualified the Sharif brothers from contesting the general elections.
Claudia Navas of Ordinaria Locura [es] is pleased that the new anti-smoking law is now in effect in Guatemala, but lists some of the arguments by some why it won't be effective such as that no one will follow the law and that the police and other public officials will benefit from bribes.
MexaBlog [es] presents gubernatorial candidate Juan Blanco for the state of Chihuahua and whose website contains a striking resemblance to the website of Barack Obama during his presidential campaign.
Mafaca breaks down the demographics of Guatemala's population [es] in easy to understand terms.
On the occasion of the International Women’s Day Birat Simha at Nepali Perspectives.. comments on the status of women in Nepal: “Until we can accept the fact that all babies, whether male or female, are born equal and have equal rights, the status of Nepali women will continue to be defiled.”
An Ordinary Citizen analyzes the role of media in covering the recent BDR Mutiny in Bangladesh. The blogger acknowledges that the “electronic media tried to convey the real-time phenomenon to the viewers,” and the citizen journalists expressed their opinion unhindered and made the whole process participative.
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