religion

Happy Yezidi New Year!

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This week it was the Yezidi New Year, known as Sere Sal, which means “Head of the Year”. It’s celebrated on a particular Wednesday of April, known as Red Wednesday. This day commemorates the Wednesday that Melek Taus, one of the central figures of the Yezidi religion, first came to earth millions of years ago in order to calm the planet’s quaking and spread his peacock colors throughout the world.

Below are photos from this week’s Yezidi New Year celebration in Sinjar, Iraq, close to the Iraqi-Syrian border.

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Photo credits: Allt om Irak Facebookpage

Shia Girls Singing Christmas Carols in Lebanese Church

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A message from this past Christmas, from Lebanon: here’s a video of Shia orphan girls performing Christmas carols in the Saint-Elie church in Beirut.

Happy coexistence everyone, enjoy the music!

Unlearning Hate

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“If you hate an entire sect, group, community, region, religion, nation etc., then you have surely fallen prey to indoctrination. 

You have been taught to hate, either by your own negative experiences, or by negative experiences/perceptions of others, or by agenda-driven propaganda. 

Yes, true. You can also indoctrinate yourself (self-indoctrination) by leaving your critical faculties unused.

But, don’t worry!

A learned behavior can be changed. Just remain humble; tell yourself repeatedly that you are teachable. 

There’s no shame in unlearning falsehood and embracing universal truths.”

Quote from my Pakistani friend, journalist and activist

A Girl With a Hijab in Playboy or The Hatred of Women

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A girl wearing a hijab is interviewed in Playboy! The world goes berserk! Liberals are super happy! The religious ones gets furious!

And most people, according to me, are missing the point.

This is what happened: A woman from a religious and/or ethnic minority is represented in a mainstream magazine famous for it’s exhibition of scantily dressed women. The woman, Nour Tagouri, is featured due to her profession, she’s a journalist, and she’s not dressed like one of the women who usually features in the Playboy photos; undressed. No, she’s well dressed but good looking and makes some facial expressions as if she has an attitude, or, as the interviewer puts it, “badass”.

Now we’re living in a women hating world, women from minorities are usually more severely attacked, and some cultures and countries are worse when it comes to it’s treatment of women – legally, culturally, socially. Women from these groups are often believed to be oppressed by people in the West, even though we don’t know their individual situation.

At the same time, the men’s magazines are still here, in the 21st century, where women who value themselves in terms of their looks and bodies are featured again and again.

That’s why I’m all for representation, the kind if representation that portray the individual as an individual, and not describes a person in a stereotypical way. But Nour Tagouri, while not being portrayed as an oppressed, voiceless Arab woman, now falls into the trap of being included in a sexist context. When liberals appreciate this move, they fail to recognise that Nour is now being included in another stereotypical context. When religious people criticise her for not being honourable enough, they put her in the context of having to be an obedient woman.

But a woman in a hijab featured in Playboy is not a sign of victory for the group she represents. It’s the sign of women who hate themselves, and that sometimes, us women don’t need men to bring us down. Our internalised misogyny works perfectly well itself.

All Religious Groups Should Show their Support for the LBGT Community Now. But Will They?

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Catching my breath after the Orlando massacre on innocent visitors at a gay club. I have been wondering if any of my American friends could have been around, especially any of my gay friends; also my cousin is gay and living in US since a few years, but none of them have been in Orlando, so I’m fine. For now.

After a while, a photo was shared by the Swedish Islam Academy, a respected institute in Southern Sweden, with a statement commenting on the massacre. I read it, curiously. Would the Islam Academy take a stance for equal rights for the LBGT community? Would they condemn attacks on homosexuals? This kind of reconciliation would be very needed in this moment.

This is what the message from the Islam Academy said (my translation):

“Another terror attack has affected innocent civilian people. This attack is unfortunately not the first one and probably not the last. While terrorist groups are being affected by military losses in the Middle East we will probably see more cowardly terrorist attacks affect different parts of the world. Regardless of whether the people who perform these attacks are lone maniacs or organised groups, these attacks are being born out of the same evil ideology. An evil and devilish ideology that has nothing to do with God or Religion. 

This violence that these terrorist groups are performing are affecting Christians, Jews, and others, but they are even affecting Muslims. They easily blow up a church, a synagogue, a dance club as well as they blow up a mosque.

The lastest act was directed towards a LGBT club in Orlando, USA. For the vast majority of Muslims, there is no doubt that this act is pure evil that needs to be condemned. It is important to clarify that regardless of Islam’s or Muslims’ views on LGBT issues, this cowardly killing of civilians can not be legitimised by Islam and the traditional Muslim faith. Muslims and Muslim organisations around the world have clearly condemned this terrorist act, like they condemn other acts of violence that affect civilians and innocent people.

It is also important in the context to remind that the Syrian and Iraqi people are constantly being affected by this violence and this evil. We can never forget their suffering and exposure. We continuously need to pray and actively work for a quick and impartial end of the conflict.

Our thoughts and prayers goes out to all people around the world that are being affected by unjustified violence. We ask God to remain the security and safety in our country, Sweden, and around the world. We also ask God to strengthen and protect our Muslim brothers and sisters from potential reprisals.

Peace!”

 Signed by the chairman of the Islam Academy.

How did I feel after reading the lengthy message? The answer can be summarised by one word: disappointed.
Why? We all know that many people around the world are being victimised again and again and again. This is not something new. In Uganda, gay people are being oppressed by the state, sometimes even lynched by mobs. In DRC Congo, different rebel groups have been trying to outmatch each other in a race to the bottom, where massacres have been outranking one another. In Afghanistan, the ethnic minority group Hazara people have continuously been victims of deadly attacks. In Egypt, the Christian minority have been subjects of massacres several times.
I was disappointed, and I wish I could have told the Islam Academy this:
One victimised group doesn’t oust another one. When one group have been victimised, massacred, killed; please don’t suddenly bring up another victimised group that you are fond of. You mentioned the Syrian and Iraqi people, but there are many, many more, and it doesn’t really make sense. This time, it was the already oppressed LGBT community that was being brutally massacred by a lone ranger who believed he had support in the Islamic State (and he did), and maybe he believed he had support other Islamic groups? All religious groups have had a low tolerans towards the LGBT communities historically – and being a religious community, you need to show that this is wrong. Otherwise there is a great potential for future lone rangers to believe that they have the right to perform similar massacres again.
Show the LGBT community compassion during these hard times, this community and no others, just during this difficult time. There is a time and place for everything, and this time, it’s their time. And what’s more important: show that you respect human rights for everyone. Show that you respect human rights for the international LGBT community.
Now is not the time to point at other massacres. Now is the time to show compassion to this very group that have been victimised. Show that you can see the bigger picture. If you do this, I won’t have to be disappointed with you.
Unfortunately, I’m not in touch with the Islam Academy personally. That’s why I, instead, decided to share my views here. I hope that they might read it. And if they won’t, maybe some of their sympathisers. Now is the time to stand up for the rights if the LGBT community. For all of us.

Happy Assyrian New Year!

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Yesterday it was the Assyrian New Year, the year of 6766. Happy Assyrian New Year, everyone!

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The Iraqi and the Assyrian flag

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Girls in traditional Assyrian dresses

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Photo credits: Tourism in Iraq and Assyrian National National Library

 

 

Christmas in Baghdad

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Christmas Eve yesterday in Baghdad, Iraq. The photos are from the Iraqi photographer Ahmad Mousa, founder of the @everydayiraq project. The captions are the original ones from Ahmad Mousa’s Facebookpage.

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Iraqi Christian girls light candles on Christmas Eve at a church in Baghdad

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‪Christmas mass in ‪Baghdad, at Our Lady of Salvation church

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Christmas mass in Baghdad, Iraq

Memorial Service For Our Lost Ones. It Surely Will Never Happen Again. Or Wait…

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Today I’m in Stockholm, Sweden, and participated in the memorial service for the victims of the Holocaust. It was cold, wet and dark and I listened to the Prime Minister of Sweden, Stefan Löfvén, who spoke some quite wise words.

“I refuse to listen to the sound of boots marching”, he said, and the audience cheered.

He spoke of how important it is to stand up to oppression of certain groups everywhere and reminded us of some current examples:

“Jews in Europe, Roma in Hungary and Romania, homosexuals in Russia.”

He spoke of tolerance and the importance of the international community showing support for marginalized groups and efusing to let hatred seep in and become normal. He spoke of the importance of such an extinction not to happen again. I appreciated his speach as I believe the current Swedish government – established after a lot of drama – won’t cooperate with the extreme right, and the Prime Minister’s words on a day like this are important.

A few attendants cried and afterwards there was going to be an official service with invited authorities, where among those the admirable organization Young Muslims Against Antisemitism were to participate. When the service wrapped up and we were to bring candles to the memorial statue of the victims of the Holocaust, it struck me that I recently did particpate in another memorial service. I took part of a memorial service for the 145 victims of the school massacre in Peshawar, Pakistan, a few days after it happened. It was an emotional service where we also lit candles and where most attendants cried floods for the young children who has been slaughtered in their own school.

That massacre no one mentioned today. And maybe it’s not surprising. The Peshawar massacre was an extinction that was mostly forgotten by the international media two days after it had happened. We talk about how it can’t happen again, but it’s going on right now in the time of the information age where we can’t say we don’t know. But when it’s not close to home it seems we can’t relate to it.

When leaving the ceremony today I thought of the quote of Friedrich Hegel that the interviewee Louis Yako once told me:

“‘The only thing we learn from history, is that we learn nothing from history.“

Photo credit: globe-views.com

How Do You Become an ISIS Terrorist?

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ISIS or ISIL or IS – they are so creative in their name changings, I have to give them that – has startled the whole world it seems with their ambitious brutality. The Iraqi military just gave up their weapons and ran, despite the years and years of trainings from American experts, trying to compensate their invasion. The Kurdish Peshmerga tried to hold the fort but failed. But should we really have been so surprised?

I won’t discuss what a failure it is for Iraqi intelligence not to recognize the threat of ISIS, nor will I discuss the exclusion of minorities from the Iraqi government and the consequences it has had. This blog post will go back in time, and ask how these young men became ISIS terrorists in the first place.

How can a normal human being become attracted to such a merciless, murderous organization with no respect for humans what so ever, not even for their own kind? ISIS is not Al Qaida who will spare Muslims, they’re not the “good Talibans” of Pakistan, they’re a group of young men who supposedly sell women as sex slaves and twitter about it; who make children die of dehydration on a mountain. They don’t seem afraid of dying themselves. It is as if they had no attachments of their own, nothing to relate to but the darkness inside of them.

Let me start my trail of thoughts by telling you what I know of Iraq before the invasion. I’m not Iraqi, I have just lived there, and I’m not claiming to take an Iraqi’s place. I will just give you my impressions.

Iraq did not have a solid welfare state, well how many countries do?, and many rural areas were neglected under the long era of the Saddam regime. But there was an educational system, universities free of tuition fees and complimentary dorms for male and female students, making it possible also for women to gain an education away from home. In the cities there were governmental orphanages. Women were able to work and access public life. Religious freedom and coexistence was something to take for granted (no, I’m not bringing in Kurdistan in this discussion, because it’s not affected by the civil war that followed the invasion). In southern and central Iraq there was peace.

After 2004 not only bombs tore the country apart. Neighbors turned on each other, people started disappearing; regular civilians with no political connections. Corpses were dumped by the roads. Internally displaced people crowded the streets. Child-headed households became a new phenomenon. Child prostitution sky rocketed. A women’s rights NGO I worked with once received a teenage girl asking for help, who had been a prostitute since she was a child. She didn’t know who her mother was or why she had been left at the brothel so young. But it could have been anything – in a collapsed society you don’t always find a reason. The girl didn’t know how old she was, and at the brothel they called her different names.

“What is her real name?” I asked when hearing about the case.

Also this she didn’t know. She had no name.

Now imagine you’re a boy growing up with these reversed values around you. Where there once had been moral guidelines and a public condemnation if you did something considered wrong, fear and hatred has now taken its place. If you’re unlucky these reversed values seeps in to your family, creates enemies between family members because of religion, or closes the door to their own family in need of help. An Iraqi boy I once knew had his parents murdered by the Al Sadr militia and as a response his uncles made him sleep on the street.

“If you come here, they’ll come after us too,” his uncle said to the teenage boy who was left on his own.

But if you’re worse off you’ll have no family at all and you won’t know why, like the child prostitute without a name.

Time passes and you’re a frightened boy growing in to a young, angry man. And you might turn whatever madness that was around you to your defense. You have no education, no background, no family, no attachments. What was once wrong becomes right.

Are my ideas clear, did my message come through? If it was hard to grasp, here’s the short version:

ISIS shouldn’t have taken us by such surprise. We have created this monster ourselves.

Photocredit: Sweden and the Middle East Views Blog