Prisoners of Tradition: Women in Afghanistan All the things we should do but do not. Following progress.

19 heinäkuun, 201619 helmikuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Taliban with small hands

Kuva | 3 syyskuun, 20154 joulukuun, 2017 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Taliban with small hands

Is it girlhood having a crisis?

5 elokuun, 20156 maaliskuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Crises are normal part of life. Life is a continuation of crisis after crisis. In this light to speak of midlife crisis is absurd. It is as if one had waited and endured till midlife to erupt and be able to do what one desires to do and be. It is an image of people who are under control in straitjackets which they are not allowed to be stripped away from. It is an image of a world where people are not free to decide for themselves. In this image they are slaves to traditions and ideas of gone generations who do not allow new ideas of living because those ideas threat authority, way of life and the whole idea of what is seen as good, what kind of society is good. Who does this kinds of straitjacket good serve is a good question. What is accomplished by it, by militant control? Thoughts on what is good for anybody is dictated from above. In this dictatorship girls and women serve this unchangeable monolith of patriarchy and are replaceable second-class citizens, are threatened and bullied into silence, shame and intolerance without human rights. Monolith that is scared of girls and their education, their bodies and minds is a weak society. It is a tale of men who are terrified of female power.

Asking if girlhood is having a crisis is therefore funny as to me girlhood is and was a bloody crisis. To be told of entering men’s world when I am being stared at and my body being commented by adults was sheer horror. To live for amusement of others was and is the thought of the ideology of chauvinism and sexism which I resent with all my being. I feel nausea when I think of walking and being looked at and shouted at. I truly hope boys will be raised to see girls and women as equals not servants to men, not sexual objects of desire, but thinking and feeling persons, makers of lives of their own. To be a girl in a world where perfection is seen via male perspective, body and what a man can do bring feelings of powerlessness and fear. Yes girls are small and they are easy to rule which makes the having and making of girl brides seem pathetic and sadistic. Those who wish to have children to rape are moronic criminals and brutes, sadists who see evil in children and not in themselves. World where children are subjugated moronic criminals and brutes has a bloody future.

http://www.reproductiverights.org/feature/fighting-for-girlhood?s_src=16SOC0815&s_subsrc=datasync&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=16SOC0815”“Stopping the continuum of harm that is triggered by early marriage is only possible when governments fully implement laws and policies that prohibit child marriage, and when women are aware of their rights and empowered to make decisions about marriage,” says Upreti.”

Tool of the day

Kuva | 31 heinäkuun, 20155 joulukuun, 2017 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Revolution: when does it become a joke?

26 kesäkuun, 201514 heinäkuun, 2022 | Henna Timanttimetsä

It is euphoria, necessity, unity and despair combined. Revolution answers to the question that has been in the air, in people’s minds, waiting to be made happen. When will people be free of oppression, harassment, surveillance, ill rulers who wish to gather fortunes for themselves instead of taking care of their people. The question that needs answering is what will happen if people stop obeying, stop being afraid, start acting and doing as their gut tells them to do: refuse, reject, revolt and resist with all you have got till the change needed has happened. What will it take and need? Things must go terribly wrong and bad until such uprising happens. People had huge protests all over the world against wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without much effect. Politicians ignored public opinion completely. Such demonstrations are not obviously enough to do the needed change of mind and manners operations and decisions are put in action in politics and business.

Revolution the joke happens when as occurred in 2011-2012 Egypt uprising people started to gather at Tahrir Square until police and army asked them to leave. People left and after two months and after promises having failed and unkept people came back and again they were asked to leave. This happened over and over again until police and army took up violent measures to clear up the square. Muslim Brotherhood wanted to get involved with the revolution which began as a peaceful sit-in. Islamists saw a golden opportunity for gaining power and move on with their agenda in Egypt. What is the agenda of Islamists? It does not seem to be the democratic one as protesters mainly were after. Is Islamist way any different than the dictatorship’s way of ruling? Those who firstly started the movement in 2011 still want social and political reform in a country that has been ruled undemocratically for thirty years by Hosni Mubarak. Now since 2013 Egypt has been under military rule as people rioted against Muslim Brotherhood and their president Muhammed Mursi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Revolution_of_2011

When people are ruled with violence, by constant threat, which stops people from being politically active and speaking their minds freely, it is a state of paralysis where anger piles up decades after decades. This is clear. Still it happens because big part of the world think people have to be ruled with violence. That fear of losing one’s life, which can be constant, is made a true fear, a true image of having power is to make people be scared. At the moment as I see it people are scared and they hang on to any method of survival they can find. Are we going to have a peaceful revolution when it happens again as a happening in a square as one hand? Definitely not. It probably is blasphemy to call this revolution a joke. Story of Egypt tells options for action are short when dissidents just vanish in thousands, protesters get killed and army can arm itself up to the teeth with help of the USA. But I am not laughing. It truly is a bad joke. The joke is how helpless people are, how easily led mass of people can follow fascism win. That’s the hilarious part in this joke. I’m cracking and laughing my ass off.