Update: The story is from 2011. I blogged it then.

The BBC reports an incredibly depressing situation in the UK.

Britain’s madrassas have faced more than 400 allegations of physical abuse in the past three years, a BBC investigation has discovered.
But only a tiny number have led to successful prosecutions.

The revelation has led to calls for formal regulation of the schools, attended by more than 250,000 Muslim children every day for Koran lessons.

That’s a lot of children. And – every day? That’s a lot of time, too. And the “lessons” are just memorization of the Koran in Arabic – they’re about the most futile time-wasting kind of “lessons” it’s possible to have.

And on top of that they’re abused.

BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 asked more than 200 local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales how many allegations of physical and sexual abuse had come to light in the past three years.

One hundred and ninety-one of them agreed to provide information, disclosing a total of 421 cases of physical abuse. But only 10 of those cases went to court, and the BBC was only able to identify two that led to convictions.

421 cases, 10 prosecutions, 2 convictions. 2 out of 421.

Some local authorities said community pressure had led families to withdraw complaints.

In one physical abuse case in Lambeth, two members of staff at a mosque allegedly attacked children with pencils and a phone cable – but the victims later refused to take the case further.

In Lancashire, police added that children as young as six had reported being punched in the back, slapped, kicked and having their hair pulled.

In several cases, pupils said they were hit with sticks or other implements.

All in aid of memorizing a “holy” book in a language they don’t know.

Nazir Afzal, the chief crown prosecutor for the North West of England, said he believed the BBC’s figures represented “a significant underestimate”.

“We have a duty to ensure that people feel confident about coming forward,” he said.

“If there is one victim there will be more, and therefore it is essential for victims to come forward, for parents to support them and for criminal justice practitioners to take these incidents seriously.”

Corporal punishment is legal in religious settings, so long as it does not exceed “reasonable chastisement”.

What? Corporal punishment is legal in religious settings? Why? Why is religion allowed to assault people when no one else is?

What a sick mess.

H/t Gina Khan

Let’s consult the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for a moment.

Berkeley famously rejected material substance, because he rejected all existence outside the mind. In his early Notebooks, he toyed with the idea of rejecting immaterial substance, because we could have no idea of it, and reducing the self to a collection of the ‘ideas’ that constituted its contents. Finally, he decided that the self, conceived as something over and above the ideas of which it was aware, was essential for an adequate understanding of the human person. Although the self and its acts are not presented to consciousness as objects of awareness, we are obliquely aware of them simply by dint of being active subjects. Hume rejected such claims, and proclaimed the self to be nothing more than a concatenation of its ephemeral contents.

One damn thing after another, with an illusion that they all add up to a single Self.

In fact, Hume criticised the whole conception of substance for lacking in empirical content: when you search for the owner of the properties that make up a substance, you find nothing but further properties. Consequently, the mind is, he claimed, nothing but a ‘bundle’ or ‘heap’ of impressions and ideas—that is, of particular mental states or events, without an owner.

It’s quite a cheerful way of looking at it, because it loosens up the sense of personal investment.

Psychotherapy is also interested.

Neuroscience, social psychology, and artificial intelligence all agree that each of us consists of a multiplicity of identities that account for the richness and complexity of the human experience.

In other words, no one is a “unitary” self. At the same time, there’s more than one way to use this knowledge to elicit therapeutic healing, self-awareness, and growth. This workshop will showcase how two noted psychotherapists bring the concept of multiplicity into their therapeutic work.

• Help clients not over-identify with a single part of themselves, and empower them to move beyond the diagnostic labels they feel define them

If one single part of yourself is giving you the pip, switch your attention to a different one.

It can be hard to sideline an identity if the outside world is intent on tormenting you over it. But when it’s not, and/or when we can escape from the outside world for awhile…we can be a bunch of different selves. We don’t have to nail ourselves to any of them.

You’d better believe it.

It’s happened before. The BBC reported in March 2013:

Sikh weddings are regularly disrupted by protesters opposed to mixed-faith marriages in gurdwaras, a BBC Asian Network investigation has found.

Victims and their families have accused the protesters – who believe non-Sikhs should not be getting married in Sikh temples – of threatening behaviour.

In some cases, protesters have barricaded themselves inside gurdwaras to prevent ceremonies taking place.

Last year the windows of a family’s house in Coventry were smashed.

That happened right before a “mixed” wedding in a nearby gurdwara.

The father of the bride told BBC Asian Network the house was targeted because his daughter was marrying a Hindu in a Sikh temple.

He said: “Some of these people didn’t want the wedding to go ahead. This was the way for them to frighten me.”

The couple ended up having a police escort for the wedding.

In another incident, a bunch of “protesters” locked a couple out of their own wedding in Swindon – the “protesters” inside the gates, the people who wanted to get married outside.

One of the protesters, speaking anonymously to the BBC Asian Network, said: “The last thing I want is to go to a gurdwara and cause trouble. I can say hand on heart that we have never resorted to violence. We don’t want to do this.”

But he said he believed it was hypocritical for a bride or groom to go through a ceremony when they do not truly believe in the Sikh faith.

See there it is again, that ridiculous idea that the “hypocrisy” of a stranger is something he gets to act on, by forcibly preventing people from getting married in the gurdwara. That’s all wrong. It’s not his business. It’s nothing to do with him. He doesn’t get to interfere with it.

There are around 300 gurdwaras in Britain and each is run by elected committees of worshippers.

The rules on the anand karaj, which is the formal name for the Sikh wedding, are set by the religion’s governing body which is based at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India.

In 2007 it advised gurdwaras the anand karaj should only be between two Sikhs and the protesters say some gurdwara committees are not respecting the faith by allowing non-Sikhs who do not believe in the religion to marry there.

Tough. Get on the committee if you can, try to change policy that way; other than that, it’s none of your business.

The Sikh Council – an umbrella body for Sikh organisations in the UK – has condemned the violence and threats but agrees with the sentiment of the protesters.

The council’s secretary general, Gurmel Singh, said: “I would say there is no place in a modern Britain for any community to resort to violent threatening behaviour.”

But Mr Singh said: “The person getting married has to accept the concept of one god and renounce any other beliefs they may hold which are contrary to that.

“They would also need to understand what the Sikh marriage entails. They would need to adopt (the surname) Singh or Kaur as they are what defines a Sikh. We don’t have legal powers so it is not legally enforceable but it is a social contract a contract of commitment.”

Yes, that’s it right there. It’s not legally enforceable, and thus it’s not enforceable by violent men who invade other people’s weddings, either. You can’t enforce it. Adults don’t get to enforce their rules on other adults that way.

If they’re in charge of the gurdwara, then they can refuse to perform mixed marriages. But other than that – they have to mind their own business.

Dr Piara Singh Bhogal has sat on the committee that runs the Ramgariha gurdwara in Birmingham and he said he shared the protesters’ views on Sikh-only weddings but objects to the way protesters are ruining the most important day of a couple’s life.

“This issue now is becoming quite serious because ceremonies have been disrupted. I am hearing about once a month, sometimes twice a month ceremonies are being disrupted. People are getting scared,” he said.

Less policing, more getting on with one’s own life.

Wow. This is hideous – from the Independent:

A group of men have stormed a Sikh temple in London to stop an inter-faith marriage, forcing the couple to cancel their wedding day.

Members of the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara, in Southall, said the final preparations were underway on Friday when the men arrived.

Sohan Singh Sumra, vice-president of the temple, told The Independent a group of up to 22 people men arrived shortly after 8am.

“They were all thugs,” he added. “None of them were recognised by any of the Sikh groups here.

“It was because it was a mixed marriage…they just came here to spoil it and intimidate us.”

[amendment mine]

What possible business was it of theirs? Yes I know religious fanatics want all adherents of their religion to be fanatics too, but you can’t always get what you want. Strangers don’t get to decide about other people’s marriages. It’s none of their business. They need to go do something else – embroidery, or making a meal, or a long walk off a short pier.

“I’ve been in this temple since 1994 and I’ve never seen this sort of thing,” Mr Sumra said. “We will always listen to people’s suggestions but there was no reasoning with them. It was a sad day.”

Always? All people? All suggestions? Even impertinent suggestions from total strangers about who should marry whom? I don’t think anyone should listen to suggestions of that kind.

In October last year, the UK’s Sikh Council released guidelines on inter-faith marriages saying that gurdwaras must ensure the “genuine acceptance of Sikh faith” in both partners, proposing the use of signed delarations.

Nope. Gurdwaras must ensure no such thing.

I suppose that gurdwaras, being religious institutions, can decline to perform the marriages of Sikhs to non-Sikhs, if they want to be assholes about it. But they can’t tell people what to do. The Sikh Council, whatever that is, isn’t the same thing as a gurdwara.

A statement released on Wednesday on behalf of the protesters by the Sikh Press Association said the men were conducting a peaceful protest.

“Some gurdwaras in the UK are simply ignoring rulings by Sikh authorities, so protesting is our only option,” protester Jaspal Singh said.

Bollocks. It’s none of your business. Go all the way away and stay there.

“Blocking the wedding is always our last resort…people of all faiths and backgrounds are always welcome in any gurdwara.

“However, it has been made clear the Anand Karaj (marriage ceremony) is specifically for Sikhs.

“We have no grievances with any of the couples, nor any problem with mixed race or inter-faith marriages. Our issue is with those in charge of our gurdwaras.”

It’s none of your business. Go find some business of your own to mind.

Back in Ferguson –

Kylie Morris of Channel 4 in Britain visited Ferguson on Tuesday and tried to explain to the British people why white “Oath Keepers” were allowed to openly carry firearms on the street while peaceful black protesters were arrested.

“The men, calling themselves Oath Keepers, only added to the already simmering tensions,” a Channel 4 anchor noted before tossing to Morris for a live report from Ferguson.

Morris told her British audience that the commemoration of the one year anniversary of Michael Brown’s death had been interrupted by armed Oath Keepers, who claimed that they were there to protect businesses and conservative journalists.

“But certainly their presence, their state of wearing uniforms, military-type uniforms — some of them are ex-military, some of them are even serving police, we’re told,” she reported. “They were, you know, carrying weapons.”

Um…before we even get to the racist double standard, let’s just consider this business of men in military-type uniforms walking around with visible guns to “protect” something or other. Isn’t that fascism? Like, fascism in the most literal sense possible? Core fascism, echt fascism, fascism-in-itself? Civilians wearing made-up uniforms parading around with guns? Like the, you know, Brownshirts, aka Stormtroopers? Like Mussolini’s Blackshirts?

Yes, it is. That’s fascism, people. That’s fascism in a suburb of St Louis, Missouri. Meet me in St Louis, Louis, meet me at the gunshow.

Morris noted that black protesters faced pepper spray, arrests and other actions by riot police.

The Oath Keepers, however, “openly carry sidearms and semi-automatic weapons as is their right,” she said.

“You and people who look like you, white males, have the sovereignty to walk around with assault rifles,” one black protesters told a white Oath Keeper, “But we [black protesters] can’t even like stand out here and assemble peacefully and exercise our constitutional right to do so without being gassed, maced and arrested.”

Almost as if black people are the Jews.

I kid. It’s not almost at all; it’s exactly.

Morris said that she had a hard time understanding why police would arrest otherwise peaceful protesters.

“It’s hard to know how this keeps the peace, putting civil rights leaders in handcuffs, including the prominent philosopher Cornel West and Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson during a peaceful sit-in outside the federal court,” she remarked.

During an interview with Mckesson, she asked if the police appeared to be taking retribution on the protesters for all of the negative attention the Black Lives Matter movement had brought to the area.

“There is a long history of law enforcement targeting people who are fighting for their rights,” Mckesson told Morris. “The reality is that the status quo didn’t just happen overnight, the status quo [developed] over many years and people work hard to reinforce it, including the police.”

Morris noted that there was a “right-wing push back” against the Black Live Matter movement, which she said “feels more and more vociferous every day.”

“There are people whose bread and butter is sustaining racist oppressive systems like for-profit prisons,” Mckesson said. “The right’s response to us is a sign the movement is working.”

It’s also fascism. It’s open, frank, unabashed fascism.

Via Rachel Dwyer ‏@RachelMJDwyer Aug 11

Karol Wojtyla was referred to in Saturday’s Credo column as “the first non-Catholic pope for 450 years”. This should, of course, have read “non-Italian”. We apologise for the error.

No need. I thank you for the error.

Hey it’s World Elephant Day. Twitter told me so.

So let’s have some elephants.

Via Laurent Baheux Photo ‏@laurentbaheux 10h

Via Elephant Family ‏@elephantfamily 5h

Via British Museum ‏@britishmuseum 4h

Bic South Africa, much to its surprise, is getting irritated reactions to its so clever and friendly ad in honor of national women’s day. They thought the ad was “empowering.”

Let’s see it again, so that we know where we are.

How is it “empowering” to tell women to look like a girl? How is it “empowering” to tell them to think like a man? How is it “empowering” not to mention the word “woman”? How is it “empowering” to tell women to be like every kind of person except a woman?

How is it “empowering” to tell women they should look childlike? How is it “empowering” to tell women that thinking belongs to men? How is it “empowering” to tell women to act like the prissy refined delicate version of their real selves? How is any of this anything other than insulting?

Among those taking to Twitter to condemn the advert, feminist activist Caroline Criado-Perez, who campaigned for a female face on UK banknotes, tweeted: “What fresh hell is this” and “srsly, ‘think like a man’…*stabs eyes out with bic pen*”.

Commentators were swift to point out it was not the first time the company has faced accusations of sexist marketing. Its pink “for her” pens in 2012 “designed to fit comfortably in a woman’s hand” were derided by, among many others, the US comedian Ellen Degeneres.

So, wiser and more alert after that experience, they –

– oh never mind.

Murdered women in the US. The Huffington Post last October:

At least one third of all female homicide victims in the U.S. are killed by male intimate partners — husbands and ex-husbands, boyfriends and estranged lovers. While both men and women experience domestic violence, the graphics below should put to rest the myth that abuse occurs equally to both sexes.

The graphics illustrate that 85% of victims of domestic violence are women, and that women are far more likely than men to be killed by domestic partners.

Since the landmark Violence Against Women Act was passed in 1994, annual rates of domestic violence have plummeted by 64 percent. But still today, an average of three women are killed every day. More often than not, women are shot. Over half of all women killed by intimate partners between 2001 to 2012 were killed using a gun.

Three women every single day, just in the US.

From Kaofeng Lee at NNEDV, National Network to End Domestic Violence:

During a visit home a few years ago, an old friend of my mother’s dropped by. As we talked, the conversation turned to her poor health. “It’s the stress, you know,” she said. “Stress can take such a toll on your body. I never really recovered after my daughter passed away.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, dear, don’t you remember?” she said. “Her husband beat her to death with a hammer.”

In my shocked silence, she continued, “Oh, it was terrible. He hit her over and over again until she died. My oldest grandson had to leave the army to come home and take care of his younger siblings.”

One of the three for that day.

Today – October 1st – marks the first day of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. This month is a time to mourn those who have lost their lives, celebrate those who have survived, and connect all of us so we can work together to end violence.

The unfortunate fact is that so many of us know someone who has been affected by domestic violence—a friend whose creepy boyfriend we never really liked, or a family member who, years later, reveals harrowing abuse no one ever knew about, or a family friend whose daughter’s tragic murder weighs heavily on her every day of her life.

Three per day.

From the Violence Policy Center in September 2014:

More than 1,700 women were murdered by men in the United States in 2012, and more than 90 percent were killed by someone they knew, according to the new Violence Policy Center (VPC) report When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2012 Homicide Data.

That’s about 4.7 per day.

The Violence Policy Center has published When Men Murder Women annually for 17 years. During that period, nationwide the rate of women murdered by men in single victim/single offender incidents has dropped 26 percent — from 1.57 per 100,000 in 1996 to 1.16 per 100,000 in 2012.

However, the rate of women killed by men in the United States remains unacceptably high. A 2002 study from the Harvard School of Public Health found that the United States accounted for 84 percent of all female firearm homicides among 25 high-income countries, while representing only 32 percent of the female population.

The key findings in this year’s release of When Men Murder Women include:

• Nationwide, 1,706 females were murdered by males in single victim/single offender incidents in 2012, at a rate of 1.16 per 100,000.
• For homicides in which the victim to offender relationship could be identified, 93 percent of female victims nationwide were murdered by a male they knew. Of the victims who knew their offenders, 62 percent were wives, common-law wives, ex-wives, or girlfriends of the offenders.

It’s almost as if women are an oppressed class.

The BBC did a backgrounder piece by Naomi Grimley on Amnesty and the decriminalization of sex work yesterday.

It’s not often that a liberal newspaper like The Guardian rails against an organisation like Amnesty International.
But last week the paper ran a stinging editorial questioning the wisdom of the human rights group.
It said Amnesty would make a “serious mistake” if it advocated the decriminalisation of prostitution – a decision the group’s international council will vote on later on Tuesday.

Women’s groups and Jimmy Carter have said similar things.

Amnesty’s leaked proposal says decriminalisation would be “based on the human rights principle that consensual sexual conduct between adults is entitled to protection from state interference” so long as violence or child abuse or other illegal behaviour isn’t involved.

But you could call anything consensual and make it ok that way. Desperate people “consent” to do dangerous work, because they need to survive. Desperate people sometimes even “consent” to selling themselves into slavery, because they need to survive. Desperate people “consent” to living in neighborhoods near toxic landfills and the like. Consent isn’t always completely free.

Germany is one of the countries which liberalised its prostitution laws, together with New Zealand and the Netherlands.

One of the main reasons the Germans opted for legalisation in 2002 was the hope that it would professionalise the industry, giving prostitutes more access to benefits such as health insurance and pensions – just like in any other job.
…
But there are many who argue that the German experiment has gone badly wrong with very few prostitutes registering and being able to claim benefits. Above all, the number one criticism is that it’s boosted sex tourism and fuelled human trafficking to meet the demand of an expanded market.
Figures on human trafficking and its relationship to prostitution are hard to establish. But one academic study looking at 150 countries argued there was a link between relaxed prostitution laws and increased trafficking rates.
Other critics of the German model point to anecdotal evidence of growing numbers of young Romanian and Bulgarian women travelling to Germany to work on the streets or even in mega-brothels.

An investigation in 2013 by Der Spiegel described how many of these women head to cities such as Cologne voluntarily but soon end up caught in a dangerous web they can’t easily escape.

But it’s good for the people who make the profit.

Huh. I’ve seen (and probably heard) that “bye Felicia” thing a few times, so this time I decided to look up its origin.

So predictable.

Urban dictionary:

When someone says that they’re leaving and you could really give two shits less that they are. Their name then becomes “felicia”, a random bitch that nobody is sad to see go. They’re real name becomes irrelevant because nobody cares what it really is. Instead, they now are “felicia”.

“hey guys i’m gonna go”
“bye felicia”
“who is felicia?”
“exactly bitch. buh bye.”

Posted in Notes and Comment Blog | 3 comments