http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/03/burkas-bikinis-reality-afghan-lives
Burkas and Bikinis
Time magazine's cover is the latest cynical attempt to oversimplify
the reality of Afghan lives
By Priyamvada Gopal
Gardian UK: August 3, 2010
Reprising a legendary 1985 National Geographic cover, this week's Time
magazine cover girl is another beautiful young Afghan woman. But this time
there is a gaping hole where her nose used to be before it was cut off under
Taliban direction. A stark caption reads: "What Happens If We Leave
Afghanistan". A careful editorial insists that the image is not shown
"either in support of the US war effort or in opposition to it". The stated
intention is to counterbalance damaging the WikiLeaks revelations - 91,000
documents that, Time believes, cannot provide "emotional truth and insight
into the way life is lived in that difficult land".
Feminists have long argued that invoking the condition of women to justify
occupation is a cynical ploy, and the Time cover already stands accused of
it. Interestingly, the WikiLeaks documents reveal CIA advice to use the
plight of Afghan women as "pressure points", an emotive way to rally
flagging public support for the war.
[Read the rest of this article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/03/burkas-bikinis-reality-afghan-lives]
***
From: Abie Dawjee
The RAIN Newsletter
August 04, 2010
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=116990
ALLISTER SPARKS: A rabbi's pain in choosing between truth and ethnic loyalty
Business Day
Published: 2010/08/04 07:49:42 AM
The avalanche of personal abuse hurled at me for suggesting that Chief Rabbi
Warren Goldstein owed Judge Richard Goldstein an apology now that Israel had
officially confirmed several of his comission's most serious findings about
the Gaza War was no surprise. This has become the standard response to
anyone who criticises Israel. It is organised and obviously intended to
intimidate and thus deter such criticism One of the letter writers even
revealed herself as part of "Media Team Israel."
But it won't work in a country where too many of us were denounced for years
as anti-South African for exposing the iniquities of apartheid. We became
immunised against intimidation.
Meanwhile two new factors are worth noting in this debate. The first is that
the full text of the 40-page Israeli report to the United Nations and its
Human Rights Council has now emerged, amplifying the initial version on
which I based my article two weeks ago. This full report documents 150
ongoing investigations ordered by Israeli Defene Force Advocate General
Avichai Mandelblit. Of these 34 are criminal investigations. The report also
confirms the use of smoke-screen munitions containing white phosphorous, an
allegation repeatedly denied by the Israeli Government.
Although the report goes out of its way to try to justify or at least lessen
the culpability of the Israeli soldiers, in doing so it confirms the
actuality of all the most serious incidents noted by the Goldstone
Commission. It has reportedly angered the Israeli army.
The second factor is that the abusive attacks have been more than
counterbalanced by a flood of supporting messages I have received from
people of all faiths and races, at home and abroad.
One that has touched me most was a blog posting written by Rabbi Brian Walt,
a former South African now living in the United States. I am republishing it
here because of its moving honesty and sensitivity -- and because I think it
comes closest to reflecting the importance of truth-telling as part of
reconciliation and justice that was so powerfully expressed by Professor
Ariel Dorfman in his Nelson Mandela Lecture last Saturday.
Rabbi Walt writes:
"Now that the official Israeli response has confirmed several of the most
shocking events described in the Goldstone report, Allister Sparks, a
prominent South African journalist, has publicly challenged members of the
South African Jewish community and Rabbi Warren Goldstein, the Chief Rabbi
of South Africa, in particular, to apologize for their public attack on
Judge Goldstone. (The American Jewish leadership and community was as
vicious in its attack on Judge Goldstone.)
Israel's report confirms several of the egregious moral violations described
in the Report including a lethal attack on a mosque during a prayer service,
on a house where a family with 100 members was hiding on the orders of
Israel Defense Force, and the killing of a Palestinian holding a white flag
by an Israeli marksmen."
(At this point Rabbi Walt quotes a lengthy passage from my article in which
I cite Chief Rabbi Goldstein's statement that Judge Goldstone should have
recused himself from the commission, and ask what moral priorities he is
posing here. Does he mean that it is a Jewish person's inherent duty either
to set aside his professional ethics and find in favour of the state of
Israel regardless of the meris of the case - or, if that is unaccceptable,
to recuse himself? But that for a Jew to find against Israel is traitorous?)
"As a rabbi and an ex-South African, I find Sparks' challenge particularly
important. When I interviewed Judge Goldstone, I asked him about those who
claimed he was a "traitor to his people." He responded by referring to his
experience as a white person during Apartheid. In words that reminded me of
my own experience, he said that during Apartheid all white critics of
Apartheid were called traitors and were attacked mercilessly, sometimes
physically. He and many other courageous whites acted on their conscience,
despite these charges of disloyalty to one's race/group.
Sparks points to the inspiring example one such white South African, Rev.
Beyers Naude, a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, who publicly stated
that Apartheid was a flagrant moral violation of the core ethic of
Christianity. He was persecuted for his stand by the government and suffered
vicious attack from members of his community church, but he stood firm. I
was a young Jewish student at the University of Cape Town at the time and I
was so inspired by Naude who after being expelled from his church, founded
the Christian Institute to explore Christian values in an Apartheid Society.
I still have copies of their publications on my bookshelves, all of which
explore Christian values in relation to a series of issues: education,
workers rights, medical care and other topics. Each publication examines how
the inequality, discrimination and injustice in the particular area violates
core Christian values."
(Here Rabbi Walt interrupts his text to quote again from my column about how
how I had heard Naude, challenged by his church to choose betweeen its
doctrine in support of apartheid and his commitment to the nonracial
Christian Institute he had founded - in other words between his moral
principles and his loyalty to his own people and their church -- and boldly
announced: "I choose God before man.")
"Over the past years and especially over the past few months I have had
conversations with many of my rabbinic colleagues about the challenge of
speaking truthfully about Israeli policy. Most American liberal rabbis
carefully choose what we say about Israel as we know that speaking
truthfully could mean the loss of our jobs and income. While many of us
speak out on some issues, we all are also silent about issues that call for
truth-telling. Understandably, and sadly, many of us join in campaigns of
our communities to support Israeli government policies that we know violate
core Jewish values, the values that are the reason we became rabbis in the
first place. We feel torn between loyalty to our people and loyalty to the
values of our tradition" or as Beyers Naude put it, between God and Man.
I, like all rabbis, face this dilemma all the time. Do I tell the truth and
face the vicious attacks from others about "treason" or tribal disloyalty?
On what issues will I speak out and on what issues will I be silent? What
will be the cost be for me, for my family, for my ability to function as a
rabbi? At what point does my silence entail the abdication of the very
essence of what it means to be a rabbi.
Thank you Allister Sparks, for posing the question to the Chief Rabbi and
raising this difficult and important question for me, all rabbis and Jews.
And thank you again, to Judge Goldstone for courageously putting moral (for
me, religious) values above loyalty to any state, tribe or community. You
challenge and inspire us all."
There was a response to Rabbi Walt's blog posting, from one Keren Batiyovb,
which read: "Right on and beautifully spoken, as always. Your post reminded
me of a recent quote by Richard Falk: "A Jew must honour conscience and
truthfulness above tribal identities should these conflict".
READ COMMENTS AND ADD YOURS HERE:
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=116990
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