Clipmarks | Deepti's culture collection

"Living goddesses" have rights too

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:33:42 GMT

clipped by: Deepti

Nepal's Supreme Court has ordered the government to ensure basic health care and education for virgin girls worshipped as "living goddesses" in a centuries-old tradition in the Himalayan nation

A few children, some as young as three or four, in the Kathmandu valley are picked by Buddhist priests as kumaris, or "living goddesses". They are then confined to temples until puberty, visited by thousands of devotees

Critics say the tradition violates the children's rights and leaves them unprepared to face real life when they return to their families after reaching puberty

Many cultural traditions are being changed or challenged as modernity gradually arrives in one of the world's poorest countries

The court has ordered the government to submit a detailed report within one year about the reforms and facilities provided to former kumaris, as well as existing ones

Tags: nepal, culture, supreme court, children

Hairstyles in African Culture

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:18:42 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: nubianhairsupplies.homestead.com

Hairstyles in Africa and among African Americans are ever-changing, yet deeply rooted in a shared past.

Hairdressing in Africa is always the work of trusted friends or relatives. In addition to the amiable social aspects of the event, the hair, in the hands of an enemy, could become an ingredient in the production of a dangerous charm or "medicine" that would injury the owner.

Click to enlarge photos and for description:

Natives of Ugogo, east central Africa

Gogo

Source Title: Illustrated London news.

Publisher: London : Illustrated London News and Sketch Ltd., 1842

Serpa Pinto, Alexandre Alberto Da Rocha De, 1846-1900, artist

Source Title: History of Mankind, by Friedrich Ratzel, translated from the second German edition by A. J. Butler, with an introduction by E. B. Tylor, Publisher: New York: Macmillan, 1896-1898.

US Indians work to preserve their languages

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:55:49 GMT

clipped by: righthand

Clip Source: kirbysattler.sattlerartprint.com

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

American Indians work to preserve their languages

Clip Source: sattlerartprint.com

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

More than 300 American-Indian languages flourished in North America at the time of Columbus, each carrying a unique way of understanding the world.

In the Lakota language, a single word expresses the awe and connectedness with nature that some feel looking at the Northern Lights. In Euchee, the language makes no distinction between humans and other animals, though it does differentiate between Euchee people and non-Euchee.

Clip Source: sattlerartprint.com

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

And the Koasati language of Louisiana provides no word for goodbye, since time is seen as more cyclical than linear. To end a conversation, you would say something like: "This was good."

And despite an often-brutal campaign to stamp them out, more than half of those languages have survived, including the Delaware Valley's Lenape, though the pool of speakers has dwindled.

Clip Source: sattlerartprint.com

Clip Source: www.allposters.com

Clip Source: somd.com

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

"It changed the way I thought," he said about learning the language after 29 years of speaking nothing but English.

Monday June 16 2008

Tags: usa, photos

Call to arm Saudi religious police during operations

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:14:36 GMT

clipped by: Deepti
clipper's remarks: Al Gaith attributed this mainly to the aberrations made by some of the commission members as well as exaggerated reports in the media

Clip Source: www.gulfnews.com

The younger Saudi generations are developing a hatred towards the religious police

A recent study, which is related to upgrading the commission, called for increasing the number of "suitable security men" accompanying commission members during their fieldwork, and allowing them to carry arms

The study emphasised the role of the members of the commission in controlling the Saudi street and putting an end to what it called the "behavioral chaos within the Saudi society"

It also stressed that all commission members should master a number of languages, to facilitate communication with foreigners in Saudi Arabia

"I am afraid of a new generation that is in the making in the kingdom, who despises the commission members and their activities," said Shaikh Ebrahim Al Gaith, chairman of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice

He blamed the media for projecting negative impression about the commission members and their activities, saying that this would have bad impact

Tags: saudi, arms, religious police, young, generation, hatred

Modern 'Witch Hunts'

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:56:20 GMT

clipped by: Deepti

Clip Source: www.feminist.org

According to Reuters-India, every year dozens of Indian women are killed for being witches or practicing "black magic." A woman in Bhubaneswar, India, was beaten, gagged and burned to death last week when accused of witchcraft

CNN reports that another Indian woman was tied to a tree and beaten by a mob on Friday. The woman had been hired by a man "to use magic and prayer to improve his wife's health," but was accused of being a witch when his wife’s health deteriorated

In Kenya last week, eight women and three men were killed when a mob dragged them from their houses and burned them individually, according to the BBC. Villagers reported finding evidence that the eight were witches in an exercise book found at a local school with minutes of a "witches meeting."

Feminist News Wire has recently noticed an increase in news stories about the killing of women accused of witchcraft in Asia and Africa. While many consider 'witch hunts' a historical matter, they continue to affect women today

Tags: killing, women, witch, hunt, asia, africa

PhotoGallery / Wall Paintings in the Afghan Region of Bamiyan

Tue, 20 May 2008 06:08:15 GMT

clipped by: Deepti
clipper's remarks: The world was in shock when in 2001 the Taliban destroyed two ancient colossal Buddha statues in the Afghan region of Bamiyan. Behind those statues, there are caves decorated with precious paintings from 5th to 9th century A.D. The caves also suffered from Taliban destruction, as well as from a severe natural environment, but today they have become the source of a major discovery. Scientists have proved, thanks to experiments performed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), that the paintings were made of oil, hundreds of years before the technique was “invented” in Europe.

Clip Source: www.artdaily.org

Wall paintings in the Afghan region of Bamiyan. Image: National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo (Japan)

Clip Source: www.artdaily.org

ESRF.

Tags: afghanistan, bamiyan, wall, paintings, photos, culture

penis theft in Africa...WTF?!

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:34:28 GMT

clipped by: Deepti
clipper's remarks: what? you wake up one morning and its just gone???

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur

Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure

Tags: africa, theft, penis, sorcery, magic, lynching, whitchcraft, congo

World's oldest oil paintings in Afghanistan

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:10:11 GMT

clipped by: Deepti

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

Scientists said on Tuesday they have proved the world's first ever oil paintings were in caves near two destroyed giant statues of Buddha in Afghanistan, hundreds of years before oil paint was used in Europe

Samples from paintings, dating from the 7th century AD, were taken from caves behind two statues of Buddha in Bamiyan blown up as un-Islamic by Afghanistan's hardline Taliban in 2001

Scientists discovered paintings in 12 of the 50 caves were created using oil paints, possibly from walnut or poppy, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France said on its Web site on Tuesday

The cave paintings were probably the work of artists traveling along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between China, across Central Asia to the West

Now work is underway to try restore the biggest of the two statues, once the tallest standing Buddha in the world, but the mammoth task could take a decade to complete

Tags: afghanistan, buddha, paintings, cave

Saudi Women "Kept in Childhood"

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:09:07 GMT

clipped by: sahara
clipper's remarks: "For Saudi women, reaching adulthood brings no rights, only responsibilities."

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Saudi women are being kept in perpetual childhood so male relatives can exercise "guardianship" over them, the Human Rights Watch group has said.

Saudi women have to obtain permission from male relatives to work, travel, study, marry or even receive health care.

Their access to justice is also severely constrained, it says.

The group says the Saudi establishment sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive.

The report says that Saudi women are denied the legal right to make even trivial decisions for their children - women cannot open bank accounts for children, enrol them in school, obtain school files or travel with their children without written permission from the child's father.

It's astonishing that the Saudi government denies adult women the right to make decisions for themselves but holds them criminally responsible for their actions at puberty

Farida Deif,
Human Rights Watch

Tags: world, human rights, women

Yemeni Girl Demands Divorce

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 05:03:01 GMT

clipped by: Deepti
clipper's remarks: According to Saba News, a 2006 study revealed that 52.1 percent of Yemeni girls are forced into child marriage

Clip Source: www.feminist.org

Eight-year-old Nojoud Muhammed Nasser filed a lawsuit in Yemen against her father who forced her to marry a 30-year-old man. Nasser arrived to court by herself because no one in her family defended her against her abusive husband and father

Nasser told the Yemen Times, "My father beat me and told me that I must marry this man, and if I did not, I would be raped and no law and no sheikh in this country would help me. I refused but I couldn’t stop the marriage. I asked and begged my mother, father, and aunt to help me to get divorced. They answered, 'We can do nothing. If you want you can go to court by yourself.' So this is what I have done."

"There are hundreds of [cases like] Nujoud who have been subjected to sexual abuse by mature men. The problem is that there is no law to punish the father who marries off the child, the sheikh who allows the marriage, or the husband who takes the child home to serve him as wife."

Tags: culture, religion, girl, child, marriage, abuse, divorce, yemen

Friend

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 03:26:55 GMT

clipped by: MetisCougar
clipper's remarks: A true friend does not come easily.
Cougar

Clip Source: webmail.canada.com

"Once you make a friend, a friend never leaves you, even to death. So a friend is really hard to find."

--Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA

Once, an Elder told me he made a decision to be my friend. He said this friendship wasn't based on my behavior or how I acted; he said the friendship was based on his decision. He decided to be my friend. This friendship has happened like he said. Even if I don't see him for a long time, or if I get mad at him, he has never changed his decision. This is true friendship.

Great Spirit, I'm glad you are this kind of Friend.

Tags: indigenous, wisdom, lakota, truth

UAE Appoints First Female Judge

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:59:05 GMT

clipped by: Deepti

Clip Source: ap.google.com

The Emirati president has appointed the first female judge in this conservative Muslim country

The appointment makes the United Arab Emirates only the second Persian Gulf nation — after Bahrain — with a woman in a high-profile judiciary position

Kholoud Ahmed Juwan al-Dhahiri will serve as a primary judge for Abu Dhabi's Judiciary Department

A primary judge handles civil and criminal cases, and al-Dhahiri could judge both in Abu Dhabi — one of seven emirates, or states, making up the UAE — and at the federal level

There are four female Cabinet Ministers in the UAE, and eight women have been named to the 40-seat advisory council, a panel that is the closest body the country has to a parliament

the decree by President Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan proves the oil-rich Gulf city-state's "commitment to engage women in the Emirate's development."

Tags: uae, woman, judge, appoint, first, muslim, arab

Women Living under Muslim Laws

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:51:16 GMT

clipped by: Deepti
clipper's remarks: Interesting website regarding news, views, publications etc all about Muslim women everywhere

Clip Source: www.wluml.org

An international network that provides information, solidarity and support for all women whose lives are shaped, conditioned or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam.

Tags:

Bastards, no Divorce for females, Gets. Which century?

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:42:02 GMT

clipped by: righthand
clipper's remarks: And it's worse for non-Jewish Israeli citizens having to conform to Jewish Orthodox rules that dominate this so called democracy that is a blatantly apartheid state protected by the United States, as was South Africa too until it tumbled.

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

Saving women from the 'chain'

Jews all over the world commemorated Ta'anit Esther (the Fast of Esther), the day on which the heroine of the Purim story took her fate and that of her people into her own hands

Esther has also been marked as International Agunah Day - an occasion to remember the plight of those who are "chained" to spouses who refuse to grant them a divorce

According to halakha (traditional Jewish law) and contemporary Israeli law, a Jewish woman must receive a religious bill of divorce (a get) in order to remarry

In the absence of a get, any child of a future relationship will be a mamzer - loosely translated as "bastard" - and will be stigmatized under Jewish law.

sraeli citizens do not have the luxury of considering the issue of agunot a "religious" or "arcane" problem

All Israelis are required to marry and divorce within a religious framework, so that even the most secular Jew is affected

there has not been a marked improvement in the status of agunot

Tags: israel, sex, religion, democracy, apartheid

Pakistan Elects First Woman Speaker

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 05:05:57 GMT

clipped by: Deepti

Clip Source: www.feminist.org

Pakistan's Parliament elected Fahmida Mirza, a former doctor and business woman, to be the first woman speaker on Wednesday, reports the Guardian. She has been elected to parliament three times from her constituency in Sindh. She is a member of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the same party as Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister who was assassinated last year

Tags: pakistan, woman, speaker, first