Climate change concern: Too little, too late
By Bashir Goth.
BODY of 2500 scientists had recently gathered in Paris and made a clarion call about an impending climate disaster, noting the likelihood of human activities led by burning fossil fuels causing most of the warming over the past 50 years.
Among other things, the report warns of a new ice age engulfing the earth, while hurricanes, droughts and other apocalyptic disasters may play havoc with our planet.
Good talk. We have nothing but praise for the eminent men and women of science and conscience who want to save our planet for future generations. One thing, however, that bothers us is why these scientists failed to invite their sceptic counterparts. We know there are other respected scholars who doubt the conclusion of the climate doomsayers and believe that the climate change we experience is nothing new. It was always happening from day one of the earth and will continue to happen. Read More in Khaleej Times.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Islam Also to Blame for Prizing White Skin
By Bashir Goth
Just like everything else, perceptions of sexiness have globalized. Hollywood movies, the fashion industry, MTV and Miss World beauty contests have set universal standards for female sexual appeal. It is in this context that Arab and African men have come to measure the beauty of their women. But the pressure on women to meet men’s expectations of beauty isn’t a recent invention, and standards have changed over the years.
Over sexualizing girls is as dangerous as global warming. In the Arab world, the features of an ideal woman changed between being opulent, plump, slim or obese, according to Abdelwahab Bouhdiba in the book Sexuality in Islam. Sometimes large breasts were preferable, sometimes firm round ones. At other times, pink flesh, chubby and curved (samina, maluma), a wasp-like waist, or a bamboo-like figure (ghusn al ban, gudib khizuran) were fashionable.
Read More in Washington Post
By Bashir Goth
Just like everything else, perceptions of sexiness have globalized. Hollywood movies, the fashion industry, MTV and Miss World beauty contests have set universal standards for female sexual appeal. It is in this context that Arab and African men have come to measure the beauty of their women. But the pressure on women to meet men’s expectations of beauty isn’t a recent invention, and standards have changed over the years.
Over sexualizing girls is as dangerous as global warming. In the Arab world, the features of an ideal woman changed between being opulent, plump, slim or obese, according to Abdelwahab Bouhdiba in the book Sexuality in Islam. Sometimes large breasts were preferable, sometimes firm round ones. At other times, pink flesh, chubby and curved (samina, maluma), a wasp-like waist, or a bamboo-like figure (ghusn al ban, gudib khizuran) were fashionable.
Read More in Washington Post
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Questioning Bashir Goth, Editor of Awdal News
What has been the cost of conflict in Somalia?
The cost of conflict in Somalia can be summed up in one word; the death of a country. Somalia doesn’t exist as a nation state. Its name is found in the ledgers of the United Nations, it is mentioned in UN resolutions once in a while, but the country literally does not exist. It is like a fairy tale that everybody knows that happened sometime, somewhere but does not have a physical existence. Somalia is the story of a nation at war with itself for at least the past 15 years, a nation that has committed suicide. But there is that part of former Somalia which has spared itself of the lawlessness and mayhem taking place in Somalia. It is Somaliland, the former British Protectorate, which united with the Italian South after independence in 1960. Somaliland has restored its sovereignty after the collapse of the central government and has since then enjoyed peace and stability and established a democratic state to the admiration of the international community. It only lacks world recognition for its hard won achievements.. READ MORE in Strategicforesight
What has been the cost of conflict in Somalia?
The cost of conflict in Somalia can be summed up in one word; the death of a country. Somalia doesn’t exist as a nation state. Its name is found in the ledgers of the United Nations, it is mentioned in UN resolutions once in a while, but the country literally does not exist. It is like a fairy tale that everybody knows that happened sometime, somewhere but does not have a physical existence. Somalia is the story of a nation at war with itself for at least the past 15 years, a nation that has committed suicide. But there is that part of former Somalia which has spared itself of the lawlessness and mayhem taking place in Somalia. It is Somaliland, the former British Protectorate, which united with the Italian South after independence in 1960. Somaliland has restored its sovereignty after the collapse of the central government and has since then enjoyed peace and stability and established a democratic state to the admiration of the international community. It only lacks world recognition for its hard won achievements.. READ MORE in Strategicforesight
Monday, February 12, 2007
America Is Colonizing Us Quietly
By Bashir Goth
China is doing what the West failed to do. The West colonized Africa, robbed its natural wealth and left a spoiled continent behind. Africa traded its original lifestyle for a European one but didn’t have the means to sustain it. It was a textbook recipe for parasitism, corruption and banana republics. European colonial powers also planted the seeds of today’s civil wars in Africa by arbitrarily dividing tribes across borders.
The West viewed post-independence Africa as the white man’s burden, and as a staging ground for its Cold War wrangle with the Soviet Union. Economically speaking, the West also dismissed Africa as a bottomless charity basket. The resources of the continent were pawned for backbreaking debt. The West lined the pockets of stooge dictator regimes and used the continent to dump obsolete weapons. America initiated the Marshall Plan to revive Europe’s ruined economy after WWII at any cost. For Africa, the West thought a bowl of porridge was more than enough. MORE in Washington Post/Newsweek
By Bashir Goth
China is doing what the West failed to do. The West colonized Africa, robbed its natural wealth and left a spoiled continent behind. Africa traded its original lifestyle for a European one but didn’t have the means to sustain it. It was a textbook recipe for parasitism, corruption and banana republics. European colonial powers also planted the seeds of today’s civil wars in Africa by arbitrarily dividing tribes across borders.
The West viewed post-independence Africa as the white man’s burden, and as a staging ground for its Cold War wrangle with the Soviet Union. Economically speaking, the West also dismissed Africa as a bottomless charity basket. The resources of the continent were pawned for backbreaking debt. The West lined the pockets of stooge dictator regimes and used the continent to dump obsolete weapons. America initiated the Marshall Plan to revive Europe’s ruined economy after WWII at any cost. For Africa, the West thought a bowl of porridge was more than enough. MORE in Washington Post/Newsweek
Friday, January 26, 2007
Don't Judge; We All Prostitute Ourselves
By Bashir Goth
When “prostitution” is mentioned, the first thing that comes to most peoples’ minds is sexual prostitution, selling one’s body for money. Next, we moralize, turning into preachers and issuing fatwas. We forget, however, that we all engage in prostitution of one form or another.
Sexual prostitutes who trade their bodies for money to survive, feed their children, or use it as a bridge to a higher career are not different from anyone of us who genuflects before his or her boss, toils under humiliating circumstances, and undertakes sometimes outrageous, dehumanizing and underpaid jobs to put bread on the table or get some favor to advance a career. Only we pride ourselves on not bearing a stigma because our prostitution is legal.
Politics, I say, is the highest paid job of prostitution. The two are synonymous, even replaceable professions. Politicians try every trick in the book to achieve their goal. They flirt with their voters using bodily gestures, sweet talk, and the charms of their personality. They offer grand promises and undercover deals. The only difference is while sexual prostitutes deliver their promised services in exchange for meager payments, politicians are rewarded with heftily, with unlimited power and high moral accolades, for services not rendered.
It is unfortunate that sexual prostitutes have to be ridiculed for selling their bodies, while everyone else is showered with praise for doing the same: selling their pride, their labor, their identity and their integrity. And at the end of the day, each and every one of us is trying to achieve the same thing: to survive in a
world without mercy.
I sometimes wonder how a woman tolerating domestic violence and forced sex for the sake of small kids who have no other source of income -- bound to a brute husband with legal marriage -- could call herself luckier than a woman who leads a comparatively comfortable life by choice but with the stigma of being a prostitute.
It is a fundamental economic rule that where there is a demand there should be a supply. Therefore, sexual prostitution has existed and will exist as long as the natural desire for mating exists. Well, opponents of legalizing prostitution may moralize as much as they please but we all know that morality itself is relative. In the West, polygamy may be scoffed at as immoral or even tantamount to prostitution while in the Muslim world cohabitation may deserve an equal disdain. But as Bertrand Russell once said, we have two kinds of morality side by side in every society, "...one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice but seldom preach."
With all of us being prostitutes, each in his own capacity and profession, it is imperative that all should have equal rights in legal recognition, insurance coverage, trade unions, political representation, and, of course, retirement benefits.
Please e-mail PostGlobal if you'd like to receive an email notification when PostGlobal sends out a new question.
First published in Washington Post on January 26, 2007 2:30 PM
By Bashir Goth
When “prostitution” is mentioned, the first thing that comes to most peoples’ minds is sexual prostitution, selling one’s body for money. Next, we moralize, turning into preachers and issuing fatwas. We forget, however, that we all engage in prostitution of one form or another.
Sexual prostitutes who trade their bodies for money to survive, feed their children, or use it as a bridge to a higher career are not different from anyone of us who genuflects before his or her boss, toils under humiliating circumstances, and undertakes sometimes outrageous, dehumanizing and underpaid jobs to put bread on the table or get some favor to advance a career. Only we pride ourselves on not bearing a stigma because our prostitution is legal.
Politics, I say, is the highest paid job of prostitution. The two are synonymous, even replaceable professions. Politicians try every trick in the book to achieve their goal. They flirt with their voters using bodily gestures, sweet talk, and the charms of their personality. They offer grand promises and undercover deals. The only difference is while sexual prostitutes deliver their promised services in exchange for meager payments, politicians are rewarded with heftily, with unlimited power and high moral accolades, for services not rendered.
It is unfortunate that sexual prostitutes have to be ridiculed for selling their bodies, while everyone else is showered with praise for doing the same: selling their pride, their labor, their identity and their integrity. And at the end of the day, each and every one of us is trying to achieve the same thing: to survive in a
world without mercy.
I sometimes wonder how a woman tolerating domestic violence and forced sex for the sake of small kids who have no other source of income -- bound to a brute husband with legal marriage -- could call herself luckier than a woman who leads a comparatively comfortable life by choice but with the stigma of being a prostitute.
It is a fundamental economic rule that where there is a demand there should be a supply. Therefore, sexual prostitution has existed and will exist as long as the natural desire for mating exists. Well, opponents of legalizing prostitution may moralize as much as they please but we all know that morality itself is relative. In the West, polygamy may be scoffed at as immoral or even tantamount to prostitution while in the Muslim world cohabitation may deserve an equal disdain. But as Bertrand Russell once said, we have two kinds of morality side by side in every society, "...one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice but seldom preach."
With all of us being prostitutes, each in his own capacity and profession, it is imperative that all should have equal rights in legal recognition, insurance coverage, trade unions, political representation, and, of course, retirement benefits.
Please e-mail PostGlobal if you'd like to receive an email notification when PostGlobal sends out a new question.
First published in Washington Post on January 26, 2007 2:30 PM
Friday, January 19, 2007
Somalia Update
By Bashir Goth
After the ouster of the Union of Islamic Courts by Ethiopian forces, the Somali Transitional Government, TFG, seems to be in control of the situation. It acted quickly to impose martial law, started collecting weapons and formed a governing body to supervise the capital's return to normalcy. The most significant victory, however, was the arrival of the TFG President Abdillahi Yusuf in Mogadishu for the first time since his election two years ago and his successful meetings with his predecessors Abdilqasim Salat Hassan, Ali Mahdi Mohammed and other prominent leaders.
Even the TFG Parliament has for the first time exercised its legislative powers by passing martial laws and sacking its lone wolf Speaker Sharif Hassan who kowtowed with the Union of Islamic Courts and opposed the Ethiopian intervention.
With the exception of some isolated incidents, no major hostile acts or insurgency activities against the Ethiopian forces have taken place. The situation, however, may take a different turn if the Ethiopians remain longer than necessary. Only a quick deployment of the African peace keeping forces and the withdrawal of the Ethiopian army will guarantee the consolidation of the TFG gains.
The TFG also needs to refrain from making any inflammatory statements against the people of Somaliland who thronged to the streets on Tuesday, January 16 th, in one of the largest demonstration in the country, protesting against the TFG President's statement in which he rebuffed the independence of Somaliland. It also seems the international community is more determined this time not to let Somalia slip back into lawlessness.READ MORE in Washington Post
By Bashir Goth
After the ouster of the Union of Islamic Courts by Ethiopian forces, the Somali Transitional Government, TFG, seems to be in control of the situation. It acted quickly to impose martial law, started collecting weapons and formed a governing body to supervise the capital's return to normalcy. The most significant victory, however, was the arrival of the TFG President Abdillahi Yusuf in Mogadishu for the first time since his election two years ago and his successful meetings with his predecessors Abdilqasim Salat Hassan, Ali Mahdi Mohammed and other prominent leaders.
Even the TFG Parliament has for the first time exercised its legislative powers by passing martial laws and sacking its lone wolf Speaker Sharif Hassan who kowtowed with the Union of Islamic Courts and opposed the Ethiopian intervention.
With the exception of some isolated incidents, no major hostile acts or insurgency activities against the Ethiopian forces have taken place. The situation, however, may take a different turn if the Ethiopians remain longer than necessary. Only a quick deployment of the African peace keeping forces and the withdrawal of the Ethiopian army will guarantee the consolidation of the TFG gains.
The TFG also needs to refrain from making any inflammatory statements against the people of Somaliland who thronged to the streets on Tuesday, January 16 th, in one of the largest demonstration in the country, protesting against the TFG President's statement in which he rebuffed the independence of Somaliland. It also seems the international community is more determined this time not to let Somalia slip back into lawlessness.READ MORE in Washington Post
Friday, January 05, 2007
Somaliland Will Be Recognized
By Bashir Goth
Somalia/UAE - Contrary to what pundits say about an Iraq scenario tearing up Somalia, I believe the quick withdrawal of the Ethiopian forces from Somalia and the speedy deployment of African peacekeeping forces with international financial backing will bring peace and stability to Somalia under a strong central government for the first time in 16 years.
Everything will of course depend on how quickly the international community moves to extend a Marshall Plan to rebuild the country's government institutions, particularly the armed forces, as well as creating jobs for the people.
The establishment of a peaceful and stable government in Southern Somalia will create a favorable political atmosphere for Somaliland. A former British Protectorate, Somaliland annulled its union with Somalia after the collapse of the central government in 1991. Since then it has enjoyed peace and stability under an elected presidency, bichameral parliament, independent judicial system and a vigorous free press. It has also a functioning currency, armed forces and police forces and four universities.
Often described as The Little Country That Could, Somaliland has excellent bilateral ties with neighboring states, particularly Ethiopia and Kenya. It has established special friendship with South Africa, Tanzania, Senegal and Nigeria, UK and Germany, however recognition has so far eluded it due to Arab countries' staunch rejection of the dismemberment of an Arab League member state.
However, with its brilliant record in building government institutions and maintaining peace and stability with a unique blend of traditional conflict resolving methods and modern democracy, Somaliland has won international admiration as Africa's Best Kept Secret.
The main obstacle for Somaliland was to find a negotiating partner with Somalia. Now, with the optimism of the South coming under one recognized authority for the first time, the African Union will have no reason to revert to its ostrich tactics anymore. They will be duty-bound to force the Southern government to sit with Somaliland and work out a permanent solution on Somaliland people's demand for sovereignty. And given the unwavering wish of Somaliland people for their sovereignty under the internationally recognized boundaries of 1960, the only possible outcome of any such talks will be the official secession and recognition of Somaliland. Another unexpected outcome of Ethiopia's close ties with both the TFG and independent Somaliland could be the founding of a Horn of African Economic and Monetary Union in which Djiobuti, Eritrea, and Kenya could eventually join. READ MORE in Washington Post.
By Bashir Goth
Somalia/UAE - Contrary to what pundits say about an Iraq scenario tearing up Somalia, I believe the quick withdrawal of the Ethiopian forces from Somalia and the speedy deployment of African peacekeeping forces with international financial backing will bring peace and stability to Somalia under a strong central government for the first time in 16 years.
Everything will of course depend on how quickly the international community moves to extend a Marshall Plan to rebuild the country's government institutions, particularly the armed forces, as well as creating jobs for the people.
The establishment of a peaceful and stable government in Southern Somalia will create a favorable political atmosphere for Somaliland. A former British Protectorate, Somaliland annulled its union with Somalia after the collapse of the central government in 1991. Since then it has enjoyed peace and stability under an elected presidency, bichameral parliament, independent judicial system and a vigorous free press. It has also a functioning currency, armed forces and police forces and four universities.
Often described as The Little Country That Could, Somaliland has excellent bilateral ties with neighboring states, particularly Ethiopia and Kenya. It has established special friendship with South Africa, Tanzania, Senegal and Nigeria, UK and Germany, however recognition has so far eluded it due to Arab countries' staunch rejection of the dismemberment of an Arab League member state.
However, with its brilliant record in building government institutions and maintaining peace and stability with a unique blend of traditional conflict resolving methods and modern democracy, Somaliland has won international admiration as Africa's Best Kept Secret.
The main obstacle for Somaliland was to find a negotiating partner with Somalia. Now, with the optimism of the South coming under one recognized authority for the first time, the African Union will have no reason to revert to its ostrich tactics anymore. They will be duty-bound to force the Southern government to sit with Somaliland and work out a permanent solution on Somaliland people's demand for sovereignty. And given the unwavering wish of Somaliland people for their sovereignty under the internationally recognized boundaries of 1960, the only possible outcome of any such talks will be the official secession and recognition of Somaliland. Another unexpected outcome of Ethiopia's close ties with both the TFG and independent Somaliland could be the founding of a Horn of African Economic and Monetary Union in which Djiobuti, Eritrea, and Kenya could eventually join. READ MORE in Washington Post.
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