Thinking After Crisis

News and analysis…

Largely overshadowed in the American media by the Eric Massa soap opera, on March 8th there was a tragic massacre in Jos, Nigeria of several hundred people. Coming out of this horrific event are questions about ethno-religious conflict, addressing religious differences in circumstances of tension, root issues of political and economic inequality, and most importantly how to overcome differences to see others as human beings.

Alas! A Blog | I did not know about how deeply my friend’s fear, mistrust, and hatred of the Muslims in Nigeria ran until after our friendship was well-established. She says she feels this way only about Nigerian Muslims, not about people who follow Islam in general, and I believe her, and she tells stories about her own experiences in Nigeria and the experiences of the people she knows to justify herself. The fact that she makes this distinction, of course, suggests that the issues at stake are not really religious, but the fact that they are expressed religiously–in terms of spirituality and morality and the one true path to God–makes it hard, even just between the two of us, to get at what those stakes really are; and then I think about the way our invasion of Iraq and ousting of Saddam Hussein made space for the Sunni and Shia to go at each other’s throats–check out this NPR interview with Deborah Amos about her new book, Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East–and even the Israeli-Palestinian struggle over the status of Jerusalem, which is so often played out in religious terms. And when I think about how may more examples I could list, I cannot help but feel that maybe it’s all, always, political; maybe the god or gods all these people fight over is just a way of not having to take responsibility for their own politics, their own desire for power, their own inability to share, their own fear of everything that makes them vulnerable; maybe the need to make your religion the only true one is nothing more than fear and cowardice, and we all know how thin the line is between the coward who cowers and the coward who becomes a bully.

It has been a very long time, since I was an undergraduate in fact, that I have known personally someone who could place her or himself so easily, so firmly, so absolutely, on one side of this kind of divide and so thoroughly forget that the other side is also inhabited by people; and yet even as I write that, it would be dishonest of me not to own up to the fact that I too once stood with Israel, as a Jew, in strictly religious terms, in a way that denied the humanity of the other side.

That we all have this capacity within us is by now a cliche, but how do you learn to accept that impulse in someone who has become your friend? Because if you cannot accept it–which is not the same thing as approving of it, or allowing it to go unchallenged–then there can no longer be a real friendship. This is the question that I am confronting.

Global Comment |Nigeria is one of the world’s major oil producers and seventh largest exporter, yet many of its citizens live in abject poverty. The Niger Delta region of the country, home to the nation’s oil, is synonymous with violence and the kidnapping trade. Tribal and religious divides continue to claim lives, the most recent being the January Jos riots, where over 300 people died.

Thanks to the Christmas Day “Crotch Bomber,” as Umaru Farouk Abdulmutallah is now popularly known, Nigeria on a terrorism watch list, making life extremely hard for Nigerians as they travel. Lest we forget, Nigeria is internationally perceived as one of the most corrupt nations in the world. We are also known as 419ers, i.e. email scammers.

Following the Abdulmutallah incident, the US was quick to add us to the terrorist watch list, yet there was no president or representative to speak for us. A few members of the senate threatened to sever ties with the US, and that was laughed upon.

Keep in mind that we have a rich cultural heritage, and have made some great contributions to the world of art and culture. From the ‘Benin Bronzes’ to Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ben Okri and, from my generation, Chimananda Ngozi Adichie, we have made our mark. However, when it really counts, what we are really known for is instability.

I have watched the recent political dance in my country of birth with excitement, shame, and a sense of anger. Again and again, 150 million people have been continuously let down. It seems some part of the population have become so used to it, they excuse the bad governance or else get blindly religious about it, saying, ‘God will make things better.’ I am tired of this unending hope and hunger for real change.

Get Religion | The most frustrating element of all of this is that there is no clear way to establish facts in this conflict, a journalistic nightmare in which the integrity of both the regional and national government agencies (and the military) is in question. It is also clear that economic and ethnic factors are crucial. Yet, on the ground, the language and the imagery is primarily religious.

If you doubt me on that, check out this vivid report in the Wall Street Journal. The language is enough to make anyone shudder in a pew:

“At a mass burial Monday in Dogo Nahawa, site of the worst violence, angry residents talked of revenge as they gathered around a large pit and scattered dirt on several dozen charred and bloodied bodies, some brought from neighboring villages. When an infant was lowered into the pit, women broke out in wails.

A village chief chastised area youth for not being ready to fight. “This is a lesson,” the chief said. “Now is the time for everyone to wake up. Elders are calling you youths to come out.”

An elderly woman prayed at the edge of the burial pit, chanting. “By God’s grace we will enter their villages and kill their women and children,” she repeated.”

Horrors. Clearly it is impossible to write about this story — in a nation that is literally divided in half by religion — without dealing with the religious elements.

It is also crucial, whenever possible, to put names on these “rights groups” when they are quoted providing facts about attacks in the past and present. Some of these groups are neutral and some of them are not. We are, literally, dealing with facts and numbers that are leading to bloodshed.

Reuters |Residents of Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Ratsat, about 15 km (9 miles) south of the central city of Jos, buried dozens of bodies including those of women and children in a mass grave on Monday following the attacks, which they blamed on Muslim herders.

The raids were in apparent retaliation for four days of violence around Jos, the capital of Plateau state, in January which killed several hundred people, many of them in an attack on the mostly Muslim settlement of Kuru Karama.

“Better security is clearly vital but it would be a mistake to paint this purely as sectarian or ethnic violence, and to treat it solely as a security issue,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said.

“What is most needed is a concerted effort to tackle the underlying causes of the repeated outbreaks of ethnic and religious violence which Nigeria has witnessed in recent years, namely discrimination, poverty and disputes over land.”

The latest unrest at the heart of Africa’s most populous nation comes at a turbulent time, with Acting President Goodluck Jonathan trying to assert his authority while ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua remains too sick to govern.

NY Breaking News | Issues behind Nigeria Massacre: The latest Nigeria massacre has rattled the whole world.They have been termed “communal clashes,” or “religious conflict” but economic and political issues are the actual cause. Thin lines of differences lie between religious, ethnic, political, and economic divisions in Plateau State, owing to which they reinforce each other. Muslims in the state are from Hausa- or Fulani-speaking nomadic groups, most of who are herdsmen by occupation or do trivial businesses.

They are considered strong supporters of the opposition All Nigeria People’s Party. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which is in power both at state and national levels, has the allegiance of Christian Berom, Anaguta, and Afisare groups that traditionally have been farmers. With national elections due next year, the national government finds it tough to check the violence out of a fear that actions may estrange its potential political groups.

Any dispute turns into a religious riot at once in Plateau State. Sometimes hatred of Christian farmers against the Hausa-speaking Muslims’ coming from the North in search of grasslands for their animals takes the shape of a dispute over land. Again, craze for power also falls prey to religious bias. Muslims and Christians live in separate areas even in the state capital Jos.
This Muslim Christian conflict in the state has been because of power craze. Power corridor allows you access to enormous money, and so your community also gets share of it. Around 80% of Nigeria’s GDP runs through the state and local government channels. Therefore, to cling to power, one often takes detour by triggering ethnic or religious hatred or pushing people out of home to stop them voting.

And Nigeria’s classification of citizens between “indigenous” and “settlers” makes the situation severe. In Plateau State, this system creates local divisions as well. The Hausa-speaking Muslims are often referred to as settlers. These “settlers” are barred from taking up certain state positions, which gives rise to hatred among some who find violence the only way out.
 

Best of the web…

Women Flyers Honored 65 Years After WWII Service  | CNN

Some 65 years after their service, a group of former civilian women pilots whose unheralded work was key to helping the U.S. effort in World War II were honored Wednesday with the Congressional Gold Medal.

Fewer than 300 Women Airforce Service Pilots are still alive. About 175 of them, along with thousands of family members, traveled to Washington for the ceremony at the Capitol.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi noted that the event had one of the largest crowds ever gathered inside the Capitol.

Deanie Parrish, a WASP who joined in 1943 at the age of 21, thanked members of Congress, those in attendance and members of the media.

“I believe this is the day that when the people of America no longer hesitate in answering, ‘Do you know who the WASPs are?’” she said to the crowd filled with old and young alike. “It’s because of the media that that will happen.”

Ban the Box: People With Convictions Deserve a Second Chance  |  Alternet

On March 8, Governor Richardson signed legislation making New Mexico the second state in the nation to “ban the box.” This victory lays the groundwork for other states to proactively address the need of people being released from jail and prison to find work and truly rebuild their lives. Employment is a key factor in preventing recidivism and this law offers an innovative solution to not only save precious taxpayer dollars, but also save lives and keep families together.

Senate Bill 254 “bans the box” by removing the question on public job applications asking if a person has a criminal conviction. By eliminating the box, people with convictions can be considered on equal status with other job applicants, instead of being immediately labeled and dismissed as a “criminal” unfit for the job. The law is very clear that public employers still have the right to ask about convictions status, but only during the finalist interview process. Employers can also perform criminal background checks if it is relevant or required for the position.

MySpace, HerSpace: Daughters of Generation Facebook  |  Mona Eltahawy

Mona Eltahawy from paul daugherty on Vimeo.

Spring Cleaning

Ah, the sun it out, the birds are singing, and the first tornado of the season touched down this weekend–it’s springtime in Oklahoma. And with springtime comes spring cleaning, an often cathartic process where people shed off some of the physical clutter of their lives to be hauled away by the city in the seasonal clean-up, (here is the schedule for this spring). It is always around this time of year, looking at the rubble I’ve managed to accumulate, that I starting pondering consumerism, recycling practices, and some of the small ways I can have a positive effect on my local environment, which coincidentally enough are the topics of today’s rambling.

Recently, while walking through my university’s student union, I was approached by some young men working a table promoting some sort of DVD/CD distributer. In an effort to get my attention one man yelled out “Hey! Do you want some free stuff?” In reaction to this shout, I immediately had the thought that anything that can be called “stuff” is very rarely worth having.

In the consumption driven culture which is so rapidly overtaking the globe we are practically conditioned to start salivating at the ringing sound of “free products” without considering their actual cost. We are encouraged to view things on the short term, surface level, trained to identify ourselves with certain products, and taught to proclaim our significance in the world by boasting certain status symbols, all without realizing how much this stuff weighs us down.

I am not trying to suggest that we get rid of all our possessions and treasures, simply that a great deal of what we view as vital for our comfort is, in fact, something we can quite happily live without. Over the last year I have helped several friends move, and  they were always amazed by how much stuff they have acquired, lost in the garage, and forgotten over the years–only to be rediscovered and puzzled over in the mist of packing. It’s almost like watching a snake shed its skin or a butterfly emerge from the cocoon.

But what to do with all this extra stuff we manage to accumulate? There are generally two options–throw it away or recycle it. As someone who tries to be environmentally conscientious, I should recommend the latter without hesitation, but instead I do so with caution. The sad fact is that the “Green Movement” (not the Iranian one), which has caught on over the last decade really isn’t that green in many cases–especially the recycling industry. Like anything else is this world, you have to watch out when recycling, because often many “recycling” organizations gather up waste and export it to be dumped  in the developing world. This is a particularly prevalent issues in the area of e-waste disposal. For example, last year the EPA charged an Oklahoma-based electronics recycling company “EarthEcycle”  with committing such fraud.  As thisreport by the Int’l Imaging Technology Council highlights:

Guiyu, China, has become the world’s dumping ground for what is defined as “e-waste.” “Exporting Harm,” a 54-page report issued by the Basel Action Network (BAN), exposed the environmental horrors in this small town. Toner cartridges comprise a large portion of the town’s problems.

The e-waste comes from familiar places like Los Angeles or Chicago, as identified by tags and plates on some of the debris. How did they end up here? Because someone wanted to have them recycled.

According to the report and videotape from BAN, recycling centers may collect e-trash, but then they become mere distribution centers for exporting the same.

According to recycling insiders, about 80 percent of the e-waste collected by recyclers ends up in containers bound for Asia.

However if you do a little research it is possible to find reputable recycling programs, which can be a small way to help reduce the amount of garbage in lands fills and slow the demand for virgin resources. Like anything in life though, to affect real change through recycling it take times, dedication, and cooperation, (three things we generally abhor in America), but if done properly the results can be astounding. For example, watch this story about the rise of recycling in Cairo’s “trash city.”

Finally, what are some of the ways to work within the local community to improve the environment. The most obvious way is by paying attention to your own consumption and disposal habits and simply trying to consume less. For example, do you really need that free t-shirt that you know you’ll only wear once? Is it absolutely vital that you buy 10 cases of bottle water each month, or can you buy a thermos and drink tap-water, (or invest in a water purifying system if you really can’t stand tap-water). Are you getting rid of those electronics because they’re broken/completely obsolete, (like 8-track players), or because something shinier has come along?

Also make use of local recycling services, (after researching them!), and demand more efficient curbside recycling programs by the city. In its article “The Truth About Recycling”The Economist provides an interesting discussion of the evolution of curbside programs, including some of the pros and cons in regards to price. Part of the reason American recycling programs are constantly criticized as being non-cost effective, pointless, etc, is because such programs are so often implemented half-heartedly, created to earn “green-points” for the city rather than to actually allow for effective waste reduction.

Pay attention to local/state environmental legislation and how it is applied to corporations–which are often some of the biggest sources of water and land contamination. Take for example the dispute between Oklahoma and Arkansas over the water quality of the Illinois River which was fouled, (sorry I couldn’t resist the pun), by disposal practices of poultry companies.

Some even simpler ways to make a difference on the local environment is to spend some time picking up trash (for example take a trash-bag with you on your evening walk). Conserve water and use less fertilizer on you lawn. Make good use of local farmers markets, (the Norman market opens up on April 3rd!). Instead of throwing out used clothing/baby items/etc, if they are in alright condition donate them to local shelters. Explore the local freecycle network before buying large items or putting them out on the curb. Bike, walk, and car pool. Snip plastic soda-rings before disposal, etc. I’m hardly an expert on the matter so please feel free to share other suggestions about what local actions we can take to improve our environment.

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American Dream | Achieving the Dream

What is the dream and who can achieve it?

The United States of America is the land of great opportunity, in which people can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and give their children better than they had.  This idealistic vision is the American Dream. In addition to improving chances for children, the Dream also typically includes home ownership, having a chance to get rich and achieving a secure retirement. The Dream finds its roots in our Declaration of Independence which states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  As humans, life has been given to us.  Liberty is established through the social contract.  The Pursuit of Happiness — that is the promise of the American Dream.

The term was made popular by James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book, The Epic of America.  According to Adams, the term was “that American dream of a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank.”

However, the idea of the American Dream is neither simple nor universal.   Americans oddly tend to hold contradictory views of ways to achieve success.  We simultaneously think that people should get out of the system what they put into it (an idea called meritocracy), and that people should be able to pass wealth generationally, thus effectively nullifying a meritocratic system.  The tensions between these widely held views are what makes the Dream complex.

The American Dream is the great American story.  It is given power at least partially by what Max Weber called the Protestant Ethic, which taught that hard work and prosperity are signs of the achievers’ place in heaven and of God’s favor towards them.  The Protestant Ethic contributed to America’s financial success.  We worked hard, saved and spent frugally.  Protestantism also affected how we view work.  Martin Luther taught that all work, not just ordained ministry, was a sacred thing.  In a sermon, Luther preached that, “every occupation has its own honor before God, as well as its own requirements and duties.”  This dedication to work from the 16^th century is evident to us in the 21^st through the nation of workaholics.  Once Americans decided work was a positive, we took it to the extreme.  Because of this Protestant framework, Americans came to view work as an opportunity, not merely a necessity.

Stories of the American Dream are ubiquitous in the American Experience.  Indeed, they portray some of our greatest figures such as Abraham Lincoln who was famously born in a log cabin and rose, due to his intellect and work ethic, to become one of the nation’s most visionary presidents.  In the present day, two O’s tell the story of the Dream: Oprah and Obama.  Oprah was famously raised in poverty in Mississippi before she became the queen of day time talk and just about everything else.  President Obama continuously touted his credentials as an American Dream president, the son of a Kenyan and a Kansan during his historic 2008 presidential campaign.  Using his unusual past to his advantage, he continuously said on the trail, “In no other country on earth is my story even possible.”

The Dream mentality is so all-encompassing that it can be found almost anywhere.  Some of our great American art personifies the Dream.  Citizen Kane and The Godfather II, two of our greatest films portray rags to riches stories.  Recently, the Will Smith film The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) showed some of the heart-breaking realities of chasing success.  In one moving scene, Smith and his son find themselves homeless and spend the night in the public restroom of a Bay Area Rapid Transit station.  Another scene from this film epitomizes the Dream mentality.  Smith’s character teaches his son that the Dream is a possibility for those who work for it.

You got a dream… You gotta protect it. People can’t do somethin’ themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want somethin’, go get it. Period.

Will Smith’s character endures barrier after barrier to achieving success but it is this belief in the Dream that propels him forward.  This spirit of opportunity and drive is necessary in working toward the Dream.  Without it, the goal seems unachievable.

However, that same drive can turn against those who devote their lives to it.  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s acclaimed work, The Great Gatsby is also about the American Dream and the potential pitfalls of too much success.

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy–they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money of their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

Excess is not a concept included in the Dream. Rather, the Dream is to have enough to be comfortable and give your children a little better than you had.  Enormous wealth is a bastardization of the Dream, an unintended consequence of unbridled ambition.

Dream stories serve to inform us of possibility.  Last year we heard an American Dream story recounted over and over, that of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.  An e-mail from President Obama to his supporters recounts the now familiar story.

And then there is Judge Sotomayor’s incredible personal story. She grew up in a housing project in the South Bronx — her parents coming to New York from Puerto Rico during the Second World War. At the age of nine, she lost her father, and her mother worked six days a week just to put food on the table. It takes a certain resilience and determination to rise up out of such circumstances, focus, work hard and achieve the American dream.

In Judge Sotomayor, our nation will have a Justice who will never forget her humble beginnings, will always apply the rule of law, and will be a protector of the Constitution that made her American dream and the dreams of millions of others possible. As she said so clearly yesterday, Judge Sotomayor’s decisions on the bench “have been made not to serve the interests of any one litigant, but always to serve the larger interest of impartial justice.”

This story shows who can achieve the American Dream: anyone.  According to the Dream, we all have the opportunity to achieve it.  Our own hard work and moral fiber will help us along the way.  As Americans, this story is our story and permeates every aspect of our society.  We are constantly told that we can achieve it.

But, is that true?  For some, pursuit of a Dream turns into the American Nightmare, faced with the inability to break into a closed system no matter how hard they work.  The ideology of the American Dream has been used to justify the inequalities of our society, as if those who have not been able to get ahead do not deserve it and have not worked hard enough.  This is where the tension between meritocracy and inheritance becomes important.  For the argument that those who get ahead deserve success to be logically sound, everyone would have to originate in the exact same place.  But, we don’t.  Those with privilege start out light years closer to the finish line.  The next installment of this series will examine the barriers and impediments to achieving the American Dream.

On the Trail: I Got a Job

If you are regular readers of this blog, then you know that I have been writing about my work as a volunteer on a congressional campaign.  I have covered a number of topics including: the power of money in politics, the unconventional workplace of a campaign and the ambiguity that comes with not being in a traditional work environment,  the pace of campaigning, and being the baby of the campaign “family.”  It’s been a very useful outlet for my experiences ‘on the trail’ and hopefully you got a sense of what it’s like.

However, my heart rejoices to tell you that I have been hired on with the same campaign to work as the Press Secretary.  I have been on the job for about 10 days now and I am still very excited.  Our primary is June 8th so we have about three months of lead up before the election.  Because of my involvement as a staff person on the campaign, I have to temporarily forgo my reflections on the process.  It wouldn’t be quite right for me to be reflecting from the position as a staff person.  Maybe I will have some reflections after the race has run its course but until then I will be blogging on other topics.  Thanks for reading.

But wait, there’s more!  I cannot help but write a few words about the difference between being staff and being a volunteer, in the most general sense.

First, the boundaries are much harder to define.  When I was working as a volunteer, I only worked the time I had and if it did not work with my schedule, that meant that I could not be there.  Now I schedule things around the campaign and there are campaign events almost every night.  Therefore, making plans for anything personal is very difficult.

Second, spending time with the same group of people day in and day out is exhausting.  I see my fellow staff and core volunteers more than I see my housemates and I spend about twice as many hours in the day with them as I do sleeping.  I know that by the end of the campaign, I will be on their last nerve and they will be on mine.  But, spending all that time together also results in strong bonds.  We’re there to encourage one another.  Example: Yesterday three of my coworkers went to Panda Express, the Chinese restaurant literally around the corner from the office.  “Do you want anything?” one of them asked.  Jokingly I said, “yeah, I’ll take your fortune cookie.”  When they arrived back thirty minutes later I received three fortune cookies, one from each of them.  Indeed, we go to Panda Express so often I’ve started collecting the fortunes and taping them to my laptop screen.  The two fortunes added today say, “BEAUTIFUL THINGS AWAIT YOU” and “NOW IS A GOOD TIME TO FINISH OLD TASKS.”  I have more to add.  I know that these will be long month and looking up at encouraging words (even fortune cookie wisdom) delivered from friendly hands will keep me trudging on.

Third, I am perpetually exhausted.  Any political race is daunting and ours is no different.  The sheer amount of work to be done seems almost unachievable in such a short period of time.  I also had the wisdom to start work and move across town on the same day, which led to me shoving books and knick knacks into boxes while fielding calls from my candidate and my campaign manager.  Then all my possessions spent several days in boxes while I worked 15 hour days to try and get my bearings.  I pushed myself on Saturday (first day off) to unpack and organize everything.  Sunday morning I woke up with a cold.  Such is life, at least for the next three months, and hopefully beyond.

That is all for my campaign reflections.  I look forward to filling you in after the race has been run (and won).

Women’s Day and Oklahoma

News and analysis…

March is dedicated as Women’s History Month, starting off with International Women’s Day, March 8, 2010. In honor of that occasion, below are some of the recent stories focusing on the status of women in Oklahoma…

Oklahoma House of Representatives | OKLAHOMA CITY (March 2, 2010) — Legislation creating a pilot program that seeks to establish reentry and diversion programs to allow nonviolent offender mothers to receive community-based services in lieu of incarceration unanimously passed the House today.

House Bill 2998, by Rep. Kris Steele, would encourage re-entry and diversion programs as opposed to jail time for nonviolent female offenders in allow them to receive rehabilitative services while maintaining contact with their children.

Oklahoma incarcerates more women than any other state in the nation. Its incarceration rate for women is 131 per 100,000 residents, almost twice the national average of 69 per 100,000.

Most women prison inmates, 68 percent, are in prison for nonviolent offenses.

“This bill will give women convicted of nonviolent crimes access to community-based rehabilitative services that have proven effective,” said Steele, R-Shawnee. “As policy-makers, we can be both tough and smart on crime. The average prison stay for nonviolent women is less than a year, but the impact on their children is lifelong and devastating. In-home rehabilitative services will keep these families together and allow Oklahoma women to receive the help they desperately need.”

The bill passed the House with a vote of 92-0 and will next be considered by the Senate.

Henry G. Bennett Memorial Library | The month of March is Women’s History Month. Between the years of 1907 and 2008 only 77 women have been elected to the Oklahoma Legislature. As of February 2009, 46 of these remarkable women have shared their stories as part of the Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project.

Since 2006, Associate Professor/Oral History Librarian Tanya Finchum of Oklahoma State University embarked on a project to capture and record information about women who have served or are currently serving in the Oklahoma Legislature. Within the Oklahoma State University Library website, a website was launched in February 2009. The website is a culmination of her work and includes transcripts, audio excerpts, and memorabilia collected as a result of interview efforts. The web address is http://www.library.okstate.edu/oralhistory/wotol/.

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence | Domestic Violence in Oklahoma:

Oklahoma Law enforcement agencies answer an average of 15, 000 domestic violence calls each year….

Oklahoma currently ranks 10th nationally for the number of women murdered by males. Among cases where the relationship between the victim and offender was known, 91% of perpetrators were known by the victim.

According to a study conducted by the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of  Battered Women, nearly 3/4 of women incarcerated in Oklahoman state prisons reported being physically abused at some point in their lifetime.

Nearly 20 percent of Oklahoma high school students have reported being hit, slapped, or physically hurt by their boyfriend or girlfriend; this is compared to the 9 percent of all students nation wide.

The rate of dating violence for Oklahoma ninth graders is more than three times the national average, at the rate of 26 percent for Oklahoma freshmen, compared to 8 percent nationwide.

New OK | Budget problems have caused cutbacks statewide in services to women who are victims of domestic violence or sexual assault, officials say.

“It hurts my heart,” said Marcia Smith, executive director of the state Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. “Demand for help is up, but budget problems are forcing some services to go away.”

About 29 state-supported programs offer help to domestic violence and sexual assault victims, Smith said. All of them have experienced a 10 percent cut in funds for the past two months, on top of 5 percent funding cuts every month since July.

“It’s too much for them to absorb,” Smith said.

Huffington Post | Anti-choice legislators in Oklahoma are experts on at least two things: waste and distraction. After repeatedly introducing laws – and having them overturned by the courts for being unconsitutional – that do nothing more than force government intrusion into the professional lives of physicians and the personal lives of women seeking reproductive health care, they continue to waste taxpayer time and money by ignoring constitutional rules.

Yesterday, a bill that may be unconstitutional sailed through the OK House and is on its way to the Senate. It would force physicians performing abortions to narrate an ultrasound description to the pregnant woman on whom the ultrasound is being performed. This was one week after an Oklahoma district court ruled unconstitutional a 2009 law that created a public web site where doctors would be forced to publish personal information on women who have had abortions (including their names and the reason for their abortions). And now the Oklahoma Supreme Court confirmed the ruling of a lower court that mandatory viewing of ultrasounds is unconstitutional putting to rest a 2008 law that would have forced women to view the ultrasound of their pregnancy prior to receiving an abortion…

Astoundingly, the bill passed the OK House without a question or a discussion, despite this history of wasting taxpayer time and money by passing unconstitutional laws and then having them overturned.

Best of the web…

Senators: Lift Ban on Gays Donating Blood  |  365 Gay News

The senators said that while hospitals and emergency rooms are in urgent need of blood products, “healthy blood donors are turned away every day due to an antiquated policy and our blood supply is not necessarily any safer for it.”

Brian Moulton, chief legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign,the nation’s largest gay rights group, said they are hopeful that the policy, last reviewed in 2006, will change under President Barack Obama, “who is interested in looking at all the policies that have a discriminatory effect.” The goal, he said, is “to have policies in place that are based on the science” rather than “any discriminatory idea about our community.”

One in three killed by US drone strikes is a civilian  |  The Raw Story

The US military has used drones to attack suspected terrorists in Pakistan since at least 2004. Proponents of the small, unmanned planes say they are capable of “surgical strikes” that reduce civilian casualties and effectively combat terrorism.

Is that true? Well, not really, according to a new report from the New America Foundation, a non-profit research institute.

The percentage of civilians killed by drones in Pakistan is at about 32 percent, or one out of three, the report states, and the strikes themselves have little effect in deterring terrorist activities in either Pakistan or Afghanistan. Researchers do not believe any of the reported strikes targeted Osama bin Laden.

Ford’s First EV Isn’t Sexy, But It’s Smart  |  Wired

Ford’s first mass-market electric vehicle isn’t a sexy sports car. It isn’t a sleek sedan. And it isn’t cool compact. It’s a van. A delivery van, to be exact, designed specifically for fleet use. It isn’t the sexiest way to break into the electric arena, but it’s a smart move for Ford and a logical place for EVs.

Ford rolled into San Francisco with one of the Transit Connect Electric vans that goes on sale at the end of the year. It isn’t much to look at — a big box on wheels with a definite European flair — but it offers 80 miles of range and charges in as little as six hours. Ford is offering it only its big fleet customers for now but opens the order book next year for anyone who wants one.

When It Hits Home: follow-up and the future

Last Wednesday, February 24th, 150 people attended When It Hits Home: an evening concerning intimate partner violence.  The event, sponsored by The Xenia Institute, the Center for Social Justice, and the OU Women’s and Gender Studies program, pre-screened One in Three, a film on domestic violence created by local Oklahoma filmmakers.  After the film, dialogue fellows from Xenia facilitated a public dialogue designed to create lists of ideas and topics for future discussion and action.  The various lists were assembled into a single document that was then sent to the event attendees.  It is our hope that the attendees will continue working with this issue alongside our work.  The list can be seen here:

When It Hits Home: ideas through dialogue

Additionally, three podcasts were produced leading up to the event.  One podcast was a conversation with the filmmakers of One in Three, another was a conversation with an OU law professor and former domestic violence prosecutor, and the final one was made up of highlights from the first Xenia/WGS joint event on domestic violence, held in April 2009.

Gabe and Leguiera podcast

Connie Smothermon podcast

Don’t Look Away podcast

Click here for a gallery of photos from the event:

When It Hits Home photo gallery

When It Hits Home: ideas through dialogue

Last week, after the pre-screening of the film One in Three, The Xenia Institute facilitated a public dialogue session with the screening attendees.  We asked the group leaders to report ideas that the groups came up with and topics for further discussion.  These ideas and topics are in raw form, but it is our hope that they might be considered carefully and worked with further.  After all, the idea to pair a public dialogue with a film screening came from a joint Xenia and OU Women’s and Gender Studies event almost one year ago.  Who knows what might come next…

Below are the ideas and topics in no particular order:

• A series of school assemblies with speakers and videos, maybe in conjunction with a direct service agency or a group that specializes in violence prevention.

• Training a team of youth who could make presentations at other schools on the topic of intimate partner violence and rape, in particular engaging students in role playing and engaging young men.

• Public service announcements through the local media: newspapers, radio, and the public library.

• Start in preschool/kindergarten by educating children in what it means to be authentic with one another, especially concerning gender relations.

• Training teachers to recognize the signs of abuse, neglect, and relationship issues.

• Parents beginning conversations with their children concerning appropriate and inappropriate forms of touching etc.

• People need to understand how to say “no” and how to hear “no.”

• Educating the general public on how to be a “viable and effective third party” when they are faced with a potential domestic violence situation. (Getting hotline numbers and resources into the hands of the general public.)

A Ringing Critique.

News and analysis…

Now that the glamor of the 2010 Olympics is over it is interesting to observe the various social questions left in its wake. Some issues which were shelved to make room for international harmony and sportsmanship include gender identity, sexism, racism, homelessness, indigenous rights, etc. Here are some such stories which have been largely overlooked in the rush to count medals and support national pride…

Global Comment |Taraneh Ghajar Jerven’s recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, “2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony: What about Vancouver’s homeless?” highlights the injustices perpetrated in the run-up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.(1) Jerven discusses the expensive development costs associated with the 2010 Olympic Games, where the original budget of $660 million was revised to over $5 billion.(2)

The astronomical increase in costs for the Vancouver Olympics is especially egregious when considering that the city’s homeless population has doubled since 2003 – the same year that the city secured its Olympic bid. This rise in homelessness leaves one wondering: how can an international event that claims to celebrate peace, unity and global harmony so callously ignore the needs of the most vulnerable populations? What kind of priorities is the international community embracing in such an outright rejection of the human right to housing?

Violations of the human right to housing are not specific to the 2010 Vancouver Games, and are unfortunately indicative of a growing trend in these types of mega-sporting events. One key example is the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where violations of the human right to housing displaced approximately 1.5 million residents. This trend can be followed to other host cities, such as Seoul, where 720,000 people were displaced to make way for the 1988 Olympic Games. Additionally here in the United States, in the run-up to the 1996 Atlanta Games, 30,000 people were displaced and 2,000 units of public housing were destroyed.(3)

Womanist Musings | In an interview with Salon, three time world medal champion Elvis Stojko, made clear that the greatest danger to figure skating is the feminization of male skaters.

It basically started about one year ago, when Skate Canada said that they weren’t getting enough young boys enrolling in skating. People tiptoe around the topic, and I was like, “You know, I’m just going to say it: Effeminate men’s skating is not my style of skating. In men’s skating I like to see power and strength.”

Effeminate men’s skating is the issue with male figure skating. WOW…Of course Elvis believes that it is only right for people to get upset if they are called gay.

“Some guys get into the sport because it’s difficult — the spins, the speed — and they like to showcase that within the music. When you’re not appreciated for that, it takes its toll. And then when people call them effeminate, they get pissed. People call them gay, and some people don’t like to be called that.”

If you want to open up figure skating to another audience, you need to create something that’s going to allow everyone to watch. If you have a male masculine person watching it, they need something to relate to. Other guys relate to Johnny Weir’s thing. You need to have guys doing jumps, so a person who also watches NASCAR can identify with it and say, “Hey that’s awesome — how many rotations is that?” or “How fast did he spin?” instead of, “How pretty was that guy?”

Being called gay can only be a bad thing if you have a problem with homosexuality to begin with. Why should it be considered threatening to anyone’s masculinity? He makes it sound as though gay men are destroying the sport by not being suitably butch. Don’t even bother to get upset about his commentary because gay people need to just accept their second class status, according to Elvis.

Global Comment | Native leaders like Fontaine have been very vocal about the opportunities that the Olympics offers First Nations citizens. However, there are many within the aboriginal community that raise the concern that the Olympics amount to further exploitation of Native peoples.

“The Four Host Nations is a corporate body made up primarily of government-funded Indian Act band council chiefs, not hereditary chieftainships,” says Seislom, a Lil’wat Elder. “An overwhelming number of Indigenous people in these territories and in the interior are opposed to the Olympics because of the long-term impact including destruction of the land, commodification of Native art and culture, and the creation of long-term poverty once the few token jobs are gone.”

According to the Olympic resistance network, during the Olympic Torch relay, protesters in over thirty cities, towns, and Indigenous communities successfully disrupted the Torch Relay, forcing delays and route cancellations, with at least thirteen arrests. Much of the Canadian coverage regarding the protests does not seek to discuss why the protesters are attempting to disrupt the games. The protesters are seen as rabble rousers who are destroying our chance to showcase Canadian wonders.

Even as the torch was carried along the Highway of Tears (a stretch of highway 12 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, B.C., where numerous women who are largely Indigenous have gone missing) many Canadians are unaware of their government’s failure to bring a halt to the violence. It is unimaginable that disappearances of White women would have been met with such apathy.

Leader-Post |The IOC held a symposium in Miami in January to “attempt to identify the most up-to-date medical/biological science with regard to the gender issue that may be of relevance to sport and that will help sports bodies to deal with potential cases.”

“Gender issue” can mean just about anything, which is why the IOC uses the phrase. Scientists at the Florida International University met with the IOC and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in conjunction with the 2nd World Conference on Hormonal and Genetic Basis of Sexual Differentiation Disorders. The IOC is most worried about a condition referred to as “Disorders of Sexual Development.”

In the eyes of the IOC, and obviously those in the medical world who dream up names for conditions that place people outside conventional sexuality, not being biologically absolutely a man or absolutely a woman is seen as a disorder. IOC officials say their concern is about fairness, as women who have one of the DSDs (once called intersexed, which makes more sense) may have a biological advantage over women who don’t have DSD characteristics.

This is indeed a murky area as all athletes at the Olympic level have genetic advantages of different kinds. All Olympic athletes train very hard, and are committed to their dream, whatever that may be, but to make a national team certain “gifts” have to be in place biologically. Endurance athletes will go nowhere without very high “MaxVO2s” and anaerobic thresholds. You can increase both through training to some extent, but if you are not born with the genetic information that allows your body to deliver great amounts of oxygen per kilogram of weight and then allows your body to “work” for long periods of time at a level that is not far below your maximum heartrate, you aren’t going to the Olympics in the endurance events. The only sprinters who make it to the 100-metre final have a different profile, but they too need to be genetically gifted as do gymnasts, as do tennis players, and so on.

In this highly gendered world one person’s genetic gift is another person’s disorder. Where is the line in the sand for what an athlete brings to the startline courtesy of Mother Nature? The IOC does not recommend to Kenyan long-distance runners or Norwegian cross-country skiers that they get an operation to reduce their super-high MaxVO2s because they have an unfair advantage, but this is what they tell intersexed or DSD athletes to do about their sexuality.

Mother Jones | There are two reasons why Alissa Johnson, a 22-year-old Park City, Utah, native, knows she should be in Vancouver today. First, to support her brother Anders, who is ski jumping for the US Olympic team. And second, to strap on her 8-foot-long skis and compete herself. She’s one of the US’s top five female ski jumpers. If there were a women’s team, she’d be on it.

But there isn’t. So, because ski jumping is the last remaining sport of the Olympics that bars women from competing, Johnson is going as a sister and a friend. And that’s it.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says the women’s exclusion isn’t discrimination. President Jacques Rogge has insisted that the decision “was made strictly on a technical basis, and absolutely not on gender grounds.” But female would-be Olympic competitors say they don’t understand what that “technical basis” is. Their abilities? They point to American Lindsey Van, who holds the world record for the single longest jump by anyone, male or female. (Ironically, she broke the record flying from a jump built at Whistler for the Vancouver Olympics). Their numbers? When the IOC voted in 2006 not to add women’s ski jumping, 83 competitors from 14 nations jumped at the top level, less universality than required to add a new event. But in the same year, women’s skier cross claimed just 30 skiers from 11 nations. The committee added it. (There are also too few male ski jumpers to qualify, but as one of the original 16 Winter Olympic events, their event isn’t subjected to the same rules.)

Best of the web…

Iraq Holds Early Voting Amid Blasts  |  Aljazeera English

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Baghdad, said the vote is seen as a pivotal moment in Iraq as the US prepares to withdraw large numbers of troops by 2011.

“This is a very significant vote; it is the closest to a truly representative process since the US-led invasion [in 2003],” he said.

More than 6,000 candidates will be competing for 325 seats in the election.

Travel around the country has been restricted and the authorities have cancelled all leave for security services.

The election winners will oversee the withdrawal of US forces from the country and help determine whether Iraq will be able to move past the deep Sunni-Shia divisions that almost destroyed it.

Five years ago, Iraq’s Sunni Arabs boycotted the legislative election,allowing Shia and Kurdish parties to take control of parliament, but Sunnis are now expected to take part in large numbers.

Lesbians in South Africa Being Raped to ‘Cure’ Them of Sexual Orientation  |  Alternet

The group ActionAid released a report about the shocking rise in homophobic attacks and murders in South Africa, especially Johannesburg and Cape Town where lesbian women are being raped as a “corrective” punishment for being gay.

They report:

Rape is fast becoming the most widespread hate crime targeted against gay women in townships across South Africa. One lesbian and gay support group says it is dealing with 10 new cases of lesbian women being targeted for ‘corrective’ rape every week in Cape Town alone.

‘Terrifying’ Saudi Novel Wins Arabic Booker  |  CNN

Saudi novelist Abdo Khal, who won the Arabic Booker prize for his novel depicting the ravaging effects of unlimited wealth, says he writes about the “double standards in our life.”

Khal won the prestigious $60,000 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his novel, “Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles.”

The book, whose title is a Koranic reference to hell, chronicles the seductive powers of an ultra-wealthy palace, telling “the agonising story of those who have become enslaved by it, drawn by its promise of glamour,” said the organizers of the prize.

Iran Document: Women Activists Write Mousavi & Karroubi  |  Enduring America

A letter from Iran’s women activists to Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, written last week, published by Rah-e-Sabz, and passed on by Mission Free Iran:

As you know, during the 10th presidential campaign, you made promises about the obvious rights of Iranian women, which, during the course of the past 30 years have been totally ignored. Although these promises comprise only a small part of Iranian women’s just demands, during the post-election events, even those little promises disappeared from your announcements and interviews regarding your intention to pursue peoples’ rightful demands. This has happened while women and girls of this land have had a distinguished role in the green movement in pursuing the plundered rights of the Iranian people, have been in the front line of the green movement equal to men, and even have paid and are paying a higher price.

Pondering Dialogue…

Seeing as you, my readers, are checking out a dialogue organization website I can only guess you share my interest in this particular issue. Working from this shared interest, I want to ponder on what it means to dialogue with others in a meaningful way, and  how dialogue is being promoted and carried out, (particularly interfaith dialogue).

These last few days I have attended a serious of lectures by religious scholar Stephanie Saldana, author of the lovely book “The Bread of Angels”, and active proponent of religious dialogue.  When retelling her  experiences as a Christian woman in the Middle East and her deep appreciation of Islam, Saldana made an observation about the nature of dialogue, “Dialogue is like marriage counseling…”. That it is only after you have built a deep relationship with someone over time that you can truly engage in dialogue where you bring up issue that you deeply struggle over and disagree upon instead of sticking to your comfort zones of similarities.

I found it interesting to compare this conception of dialogue to those put forth by Xenia members in the “What is Dialogue” video series, (which can be found here). For myself,  dialogue is not dependent on time. It is possible to know someone for years without ever having had a deep exchange just as it is possible to meet someone once and have a life changing experience with them. Indeed one of my own such experiences was an evening-long conversation at a local cafe with a elderly gentleman from West Texas. While we came from very different backgrounds and belief systems, we were able to see each other as human, sit down, and struggle together over issues which often send people into screaming matches. It is this seeing each other as human which I feel lies at the very heart of dialogue. While it often takes time to see others in such a way sometimes, it is an immediate realization which shocks one to the core.

However, instead of focusing solely on what it means to be in dialogue with others, a topic which I feel has been well covered by others within the Xenia Institute,  I instead wish to turn our attention to the ways we try to promote dialogue and organize “dialogue events”.

During her visit Saldana offered a critique, which inspired this blog, on the way major dialogue events are often conducted. As she explains from her own experiences, formal dialogue events are generally structured as a panel or meetings where the speakers, who have never met before, talk about issue of unity. The problem is that the panelists often do not end up engaging over the issues, rather they attempt to answer the questions from their tradition’s official stance instead of interacting with each other. Moreover they are put into the position trying to represent an entire tradition when they are just one person. Finally, as such events generally invite an “official” representative of a religion  instead of average practitioners, it is often the case  that women and members of submovements are left out of these formal dialogue opportunities.

For the most part I would agree with this critique. From my own experiences with interfaith dialogue events (and their political equivalent: the “bi-partisan discussion”) there is often a frustrating lack of deep engagement going on. Rather people tend to talk to each other instead of with each other. Moreover, at such events I often feel as though people focus more on discussing dialogue and why it is important rather than actually engaging in it. I don’t necessarily believe this lessens the value of such events, just that they accomplish a different level of conversation, which is still  important for encouraging future discussion. If personal dialogue is like marriage counseling which takes place after deep acquaintance, than dialogue panels are like the awkward first date which might lead to more promising things.

Still I feel that we need to start considering different models for “dialogue events” and new ways of facilitating dialogue within communities, for example, during formal events trying to focus on individuals as being part of their tradition rather than as being representatives of said tradition. One might also structure dialogue events to meet over an extended time in more personal settings, (such as Xenia does with its dialogue groups). Finally, for dialogue to occur there must be respect toward the other: a seeing them as they are rather than what you assume… But this does not mean dialogue must be harmonious or even particularly friendly at times. Perhaps groups might try to go beyond the unifying aspects of dialogue often employed to keep people polite and let members emphasize their difference even if it is challenging to others.

These are issues with which I have been struggling for some time as I work with what I hope to accomplish and learn by becoming involved in the dialogue movement. I feel it is important to occasionally take a step back and look at expectations, methods, and assumptions of  “encouraging dialogue” so as to understand how we have affected the world, to see what we need to do to remain true to the spirit of dialogue rather than being caught up in its ideals.

Xenia Institute completes video series, “What is Dialogue?”

In the past three years, many people have asked us the same question: what is dialogue?  Next come questions about specific meanings for the word “dialogue” and the way we use it at Xenia.  We also get several questions a week concerning our vision for the future: transformation through dialogue.  Since these topics are constantly in our hearts and minds, we decided to produce a series of short videos on this subject.

We proudly submit these four videos for the first time in one place.  Enjoy them as you contemplate the question with us: what is dialogue?

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

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