The following cartoon was shared recently on my Facebook newsfeed by some relatives and Islamic Facebook pages.
As you might be able to tell the cartoon has been heavily edited by someone. Something from the calendar has been (quite badly) removed, the mother's breasts has been censored, the man is watching a blank TV and the writing in red (which reads "super mother!!!") is clearly an addition that the original cartoonist didn't include.
So, partially because I have a bit of free time this morning and partially because I was curious, I decided to search for the original image. I quickly found the unedited version with a reverse image search on Google and also found out for what it's worth that the cartoon is originally from Morocco.
So what has been edited out by the Islamic page? The woman's breast obviously, but more curiously the TV and calendar. The TV says "International Women's Day" and the calendar says "8 March".
hmmm...so why would the International Women's Day offend an Islamic page? Well it could be because International Women's Day not only recognizes the hardship women go through, but is also a day to recognize the need for gender equality, the importance of women's suffrage movements and the lack of women's rights in the world and particularly in Third World countries. Simply editing out any reference of the IWD had an effect that could be seen in the comments to the image. All the comments ranged from "may god bless the hands of mothers" to "may god help mothers". Support for mothers? Sure. Support for women's rights and comments about patriarchy in the Arab world? Nothing. The hardships faced by women shown in this cartoon is recognized by Arabs, but is seen as the natural order of things. It's not seen as a problem that needs a solution, but rather an example why we should pat women on the head every now and then for slaving away within society.
Yes, this is the predominant face of the so-called "moderate" Islam's change in attitude towards women. Without changing anything in society, without advancing the legal, social and private rights of women, what Muslim leaders decided to do is recognize the hardships and praise women for persevering while promising them a lot of rewards in heaven (although the Islamic version of heaven is very male orientated with hardly any mention of women - but that's another story).
I do need to add that it might not be completely fair to say there is no change in attitude towards women within the household, as there is always this:
This is Ahmad al Shugairi, described as a "Saudi media figure" on his Wikipedia page, he shows up a lot on Islamic TV programmes trying to give a modern face to Islam. The quote above is an attempt at modernising Islam's view of women, but honestly is completely mind-boggling for me how this is supposed to be a positive quote. If anything it shows that men should tolerate women (not respect, but tolerate them like a baggage you have no choice but to live with), and treat them like house pets (or as he says, children). But unfortunately, a lot of Muslim girls fall for this nonsense and, not knowing what it really means to be free and treated as equals, they think this is an example of how Islam is pro-women. That specific screenshot above is from my personal newfeed shared by a relative, but if you search the quote on the internet you will find thousands of Muslims (men and women) who think this attitude towards women is healthy.
Consider the Youtube comment below. In red is a comment I made on a video where a hijabi vlogger is arguing how hiding herself behind a veil is somehow empowering to women.
Her response (in green) is very telling. She not only admits that Islam treats women like house pets, but is proud of the fact. Is there any self respect here? Not even an inkling. This attitude is surprisingly common amongst Muslim girls who grew up with Western influences and are trying to associate Islam with a degree of feminism - and failing miserably. Feminism and gender equality doesn't take you from being beaten with a stick and having your husband marrying three other women all the way to being treated as a retarded child that requires special care. Feminism is about being equal with men and having the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities as men.
Which is why whenever you demand details on what the "modern" Muslim means when he or she talks about Islam giving women equal rights, you will most likely hear the discussion entering gender roles. "Women and men are equal, but they each have a role to play", not surprisingly, the role women have to play is serving the men. It reminds me alot of the anti-suffrage propaganda that existed before women won the right to vote in the West.
Yes, women who leave their homes to have equal rights and opportunities as men will cause a disaster! - or so a few people thought, and amongst whom are women even. So it's not a uniquely Islamic thing to crush women's spirit so far that they will even defend their oppressors, but in the modern era of communication and with greater pressure from a dominating Western culture of freedom and equality, Islam is being pushed more and more into a corner and both Muslim men and Muslim women are scrambling for argument to defend their iron-age traditions.
Recently I started reading an Arabic book written by Khalil Abdel Karim titled The Historic Roots of Islamic Shariah and found it absolutely fascinating as it shows where a lot of rules and laws within Islam today have come from - no, not from Allah, not even from Muhammad himself. The book (although an abridged version of the original) goes into detail of several Islamic traditions and shows that most of them came from pre-Islamic tribal cultures and religions predominant in the region as well as opinions of individuals around Muhammad. Things like fasting during Ramadan, the importance of the Hera Cave, how much needs to be paid for blood money (100 camels if you're wondering - and it was the Prophet's grand father Abdul Mutalib who came up with it, just like cutting the hand of the thief both of which Muhammad adopted into Islam later on) forbidding alcohol and pork, the effects of envy (الحسد) and its cures, and many more.
So as I felt this book is important for a larger audience than the Arabic one only, I decided to begin translating it. I divided the book into several sections where each section will be my daily allotment for translation and (if I stick to the plan) I should be able to finish it within 4 or so weeks. One thing I found difficulty in is that Arabic literature tends to be very long winded and written in a way that would make it uncomfortable for an English reader. I never really realized this until I started translating. When reading a book in its original language, it all seems very normal, but when you try and convert that text into another language, it's not so much translating the words and sentences that's the most difficult part, but rather translating the whole book for a different audience! However I wanted to stay true to the author's work as much as possible, but one thing I did add are descriptions in the footnotes. The author took for granted the Arab audience will know several things without being told what they are, but obviously this doesn't apply to an English audience, and rather than intrude on the author's text, I just added footnotes where I felt required.
Obviously I'm not going to paste a huge section in a blog post, but I felt I could put the first page for people to enjoy. It's a very brief outline so it's quite an easy read. I'll probably post more sections here and there in the future.
---------------
The Spiritual Traditions Inherited from the Hanifiah
The Hanifiah is a
religious movement that spread across the Arabian Peninsula
before Islam. It was preached in Yathrib[1]
by Abu Omar al Rahib (Abu Omar the Monk) and in Taief by Amiah bin al Sult. As for Mecca it had many preachers amongst
whom are Warraqa bin Nawfal, Zaid bin Amro bin Nafeel (Omar bin al Khattab’s
uncle), Abdullah bin Jahsh, Ka’ab bin Luai bin Ghalib (the great grand father
of the Prophet) and Abdul Mutalib (the Prophet’s grand father – who is
considered by Dr. Saied Mahmoud al Qamni in his book al Hizb al Hashimi (The
Hashemite Party) as the teacher of the Hanifiah and its leader) and they were all
known as the Hunafa’ah.
The Hunafa’ah were
introduced by Dr. Abd ul Azeez Salim in his book Dirasaat fi Tareekh al Arab
Qabl al Islam (Essays on the History of the Arabs before Islam) as a group of
intellectual Arabs who refused both idol worship as well as Judaism and
Christianity. They proclaimed the
oneness of god and had amongst their followers Zuhair bin Abi Salmah, Uthman
bin al Harith and Assa’ad Abu Karb al Humairi.
Mr. Abbas Mahmoud brings more light onto this movement in his literature
where he says that they knew that worshipping one god was the correct way over
worshipping idols. Their belief stems
from the opinion that monotheism is the religion of Abraham. Amongst their practises were the following.
The abandonment of idol worship and
sacrificing of animals for polytheist gods and goddesses. This also came with forbidding the consumption
of meat that has been slaughtered in the name of idols. Both these practices were adopted from
Arabian Jews.
Forbidding usury – another practising
adopted from Arabian Jews who permitted it to foreigners but banned its
practise from amongst themselves.
Forbidding fornication (adopted from
Jews), alcohol and the punishment of those who practise them.
Cutting the hand of the thief, a
punishment ordained by Abd ul Mutalib the grand father of the Prophet.
Forbidding the consumption of carrion,
blood and pork (Jewish practises).
Forbidding filicide due to the gender
of the child[2] and
making it obligatory for a parent to raise their children. It was told by Ibn Sa’ad[3]
in his book Tabakaat al Kubra that Saieed bin Zaid bin Amro bin Nafeel
used to say to men who want to kill their daughters: “Don’t kill them and
I will pay for their sustenance.”
Fasting (adopted from Arabian Jews)
Female circumcision (adopted from
Arabian Jews)
Ritual washing to cleanse from impurity
(adopted from Arabian Jews)
Faith in resurrection and judgment day
Retreat and worship within HeraCave during the month of Ramadan as
well as giving alms.
Islam has then
adopted all of these practises and beliefs and in the words of Al Hafiz Abi al
Faraj al Jawzi[4]: “Islam
later agreed with them about these issues and preached them.”
[1]
Yathrib is the original name of the city of Medinah before the prophet Muhammad migrated
there.
[2]
There have been recorded incidents in Islamic literature that pre-Islamic Arabia practised filicide where the first born child is a
girl as that would be considered shameful amongst pre-Islamic Arab men.
Sam Harris' book The Moral Landscape
goes into detail about how science is
better equipped to answer moral and
ethical questions than religion
When Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins argue that science has an answer to ethical and moral questions they were quite right. There is no doubt that the more we investigate not only social science but also neuroscience, we find a lot of evidence that human behaviour relies on many factors that traditional moral teachers (clerics and philosophers) are not aware of - and the answers from science of course always outweigh any other answer due to its reliance on observation and evidence rather than ideological biases.
Be that as it may, I'm going to argue for two opposing points in this post pertaining to sex and relationships. The first point are opinions I held for a while reinforced by some research but mainly philosophers and logicians while the second is purely scientific that a recent discussion on Reddit has brought to my attention. Further investigation into this scientific view that seem to oppose my initial opinions shows it to be quite a large subject in itself that I thought deserves a blog post - especially as I haven't written anything here for a while - to not only share the information, but also help structure and solidify it in my own head.
The Argument
What is sex and how does it relate to relationships? In its basic form sex is nothing more than an activity carried out with two or more individuals. Looking at sex from a neutral stand point, there is absolutely nothing else to add to this activity in terms of emotions, responsibilities or consequences. However the value of sex seems to vary with different people as some will practice it quite liberally with many people, some will only practice it with individuals they feel an emotional connection with, some will only practice it when a certain marriage ritual is carried out and of course some choose to remain celibate and not practice it at all. Thus it seems the value sex holds is very subjective, it depends on the individual in his or her religious views (a major point to be expanded on later) and in his or her upbringing and opinions as well as social views and practices. One thing that can definitely be taken from a basic observation that sex and love do not necessarily go hand in hand.
I like to use a hypothetical scenario to bring the point home. For the sake of brevity I'm going to assume I'm talking to a male in a heterosexual relationship. The point however still stands with opposite genders and/or sexual orientations replaced. Remember, before you think this is absolute nonsense, I'm going to provide the counter argument afterwards which I only recently learned.
The scenario requires an assumption that you know as an indisputable fact that your partner is straight and will not commit to a relationship with someone of the same gender (remember the assumption is that I'm talking to a male in a heterosexual relationship simply for brevity - the argument still applies with genders/sexualities reverses). Now what if you come home one day and you find your wife sleeping with another woman (homosexual flings amongst the straight community happen quite often and do not necessarily entail committed relationships). How would your emotional state at this moment compare if it was another man your wife was cheating on you with? The common response is that the feeling of distress and jealousy will be larger where your wife cheated on you with another man rather than a woman as this research argues. The reason behind this is the man poses a greater threat to your relationship than a woman would, and in addition to that, evolutionary speaking, the opposite sex will further pose a reproductive threat. So it's not so much the act of sex that causes emotional distress, since sex occurred in both instances whether another woman or another man was involved - but rather it's the competition and the threat of you being replaced within the relationship which truly causes the distress.
Bertrand Russell
This opinion is further enforced by Bertrand Russell in his book Marriage and Morals (1929) where the first few chapters describe the differences between a patriarchal society and a matriarchal one. Before I go into that however, I should just briefly introduce the gene centred view of evolution where the driving force of reproduction is considered to be passing on your genes. Richard Dawkins wrote an excellent book on the subject aptly named The Selfish Gene (1976) where he shows within different species the objective of passing on your genes are a priority in life and your body is merely a tool for those genes to survive different generations. And this broadly relates to what Bertrand Russell views the very reason a patriarchal society and marriage itself has developed. Evolutionary, men within societies common in the world today, have an intrinsic need to pass on, not only their genes, but their belongings, wealth and way of life in an attempt to possibly survive death (in a metaphysical sense I suppose). This desire amongst men would obviously require procreation and obviously the tool towards that is women. But how would a man ensure that the children of the woman they chose to procreate with are truly theirs? That those children truly have his genes? According to Bertrand Russell, it's marriage. Marriage (monogamous or polygamous - as long as only one male is in the picture - the number of women is irrelevant in the patriarchal society) ensures that the children bred by a female will only carry the male's genes and thus his property, wealth and culture following the individual male's death.
Marriage is further attacked as a patriarchal and oppressive institution by George Bernard Shaw who said:
The stupidity is only apparent: the service was really only an honest attempt to make the best of a commercial contract of property and slavery by subjecting it to some religious restraint and elevating it by some touch of poetry. But the actual result is that when two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. And though of course nobody expects them to do anything so impossible and so unwholesome, yet the law that regulates their relations, and the public opinion that regulates that law, is actually founded on the assumption that the marriage vow is not only feasible but beautiful and holy, and that if they are false to it, they deserve no sympathy and no relief.
What Shaw argues is not necessarily an abandonment of monogamy, but rather the view that people marry for life (or until death do them part) is illogical. He rather espouses a serial monogamy since you cannot possibly reason that it's possible to find one person and love that person for the rest of your life just as you have the day you decided to get married. There will always be someone else you will meet that you might relate to more than the person you have decided to chain yourself to. Thus the very institution is viewed as not only oppressive, but also unnatural.
As for the matriarchal (or rather matrilineal) society that Bertrand Russell spoke of, he describes the inhabitants of Melanesia and in particular the Trobriand Islanders. A common belief amongst these communities is that pregnancy occurs through spirits entering the female body. Sex and the role of men in a relationship has been completely divorced from pregnancy and procreation and thus a father in the sense people in the modern world view is absent. Children are raised by the community, men are less competitive and there is no jealousy when women have sex with men other than their partners. This clearly shows the emotional distress that men in the modern world feels when his partner 'cheats' on him is something that is not intrinsic to our nature as humans, but rather programmed within our minds.
The Counter Argument
There are many arguments in support of a life long monogamous relationship, but I found two arguments only deserves serious consideration, the welfare of children and the neural processes and hormones released by the brain when in a relationship and especially during sex.
As for children, there are opposing researches on both sides of the spectrum. According to one research, children raised in a traditional nuclear family do much better than those in a blended family (step-parents) or single-parents. However, another research shows that children raised by communities with several adult supervisors rather than a nuclear family tend to be more emotionally stable and caring. Whatever the best lifestyle raising children is, in terms of relationships, children aren't a necessary product. With modern day contraceptions during and after sex as well as the safety of abortions, having children is now a choice that a couple can plan for if they really want one and wont be forced on them in normal circumstances.
The neurological changes, however, is where this argument gets interesting. Vasopressin is a hormone that plays an important role in social behaviour in particular amongst monogamous species. To quote from the Wikipedia link:
There are consistent differences between monogamous species and promiscuous species in the distribution of AVP receptors, and sometimes in the distribution of vasopressin-containing axons, even when closely related species are compared. Moreover, studies involving either injecting AVP agonists into the brain or blocking the actions of AVP support the hypothesis that vasopressin is involved in aggression toward other males. There is also evidence that differences in the AVP receptor gene between individual members of a species might be predictive of differences in social behavior. One study has suggested that genetic variation in male humans affects pair-bonding behavior. The brain of males uses vasopressin as a reward for forming lasting bonds with a mate, and men with one or two of the genetic alleles are more likely to experience marital discord. The partners of the men with two of the alleles affecting vasopressin reception state disappointing levels of satisfaction, affection, and cohesion. Vasopressin receptors distributed along the reward circuit pathway, to be specific in the ventral pallidum, are activated when AVP is released during social interactions such as mating, in monogamous prairie voles. The activation of the reward circuitry reinforces this behavior, leading to conditioned partner preference, and thereby initiates the formation of a pair bond.
So Vasopressin is responsible for the feeling of jealousy and aggression towards other males. It is also responsible for feeling a reward when forming a bond with a mate. So this hormone is clearly a way our body tries to instil a monogamous relationship within our social lives.
The second chemical is also a hormone that is fairly known; Oxytocin. The following video from TED gives a very engaging introduction to Oxytocin and how it effects our mentality.
So briefly, Oxytocin creates a feeling of love and emotional attachement to a fellow human being. I'd like to add that Oxytocin is released by the brain at certain events, one of which is at sexual orgasms in both men and women. I suppose that puts into question an earlier statement I made in this post that sex and love don't necessarily go hand in hand. Furthermore, similar to Vasopressin, Oxytocin was also found to be responsible for feelings of jealousy and aggression around individuals seen as a threat to a relationship.
So there you have it. Two hormones our body releases that seem to favour a monogamous relationship. Is it only an evolutionary conclusion forced on our neural biology due to a long history of monogamous relationships? The philosophy behind open relationships, or at least, serial monogamy still holds logical sense, but the bio-chemistry of our make-up suggests otherwise. In the end we're constantly learning about ourselves and who knows what will neuroscience discover in the future. More importantly though, we are constantly evolving and I imagine our logical thoughts will help us change our environment to that we see better for the specie and thus carve out our evolutionary path. It's an interesting subject either whatever opinion you hold.
A few months ago I came across Audible.com. Audible is a company owned by Amazon which specializes in selling audio books (and pretty great quality I must add). So I subscribed to get one audio book every month and after research I settled on getting Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. An absolutely wonderful book which I heartily recommend, but there is one section that I keep returning to again and again as it fascinated me to no end. I decided I should share that brief section with everyone and so played the audio book and typed down what was being said as accurate as need be. The book starts by talking about the universe and how it started (where you're writing about the history of 'everything', how the universe began would be the best place to start I guess) and Bill begins showing how immense our universe is by just showing us our own solar system. A small picture in the grand scale of things, but effective in it being a small picture.
Our solar system is so vast that even the maps we look at in books are not even remotely to scale. This is a necessary deceit to get all the planets on the same piece of paper. For example, Neptune is five times away from Jupiter than Jupiter is from us. Such is the distances that it isn't possible or practical to draw out the solar system to scale. On a diagram of the Earth drawn to scale with the Earth at the size of a pea, Jupiter will be over 300m away, and Pluto 2.5km distant and about the size of a bacterium. On the same scale, Proxima Centauri, our nearest star will be 16,000 km away! Even if you shrank down everything so that Jupiter will be the size of a full stop at the end of a sentence and Pluto was no bigger than a molecule, pluto will still be more than 10m away!
Our solar system surrounded by the Oort Cloud.
If we rode a spaceship that can travel at the speed of light (which is not possible) (300,000 km/s) it will take us 7 hours to get to Pluto from Earth. Currently at the speed of a normal space ship (56,000 km/h) it will take 9 years to reach Uranus and a dozen years to cross the orbit of Pluto. By the time we get to Pluto the Sun is as small as a pin head. At this point, the Oort Cloud, at the edge of our solar system, is 10,000 years away from us. Where Pluto is about 40 AU from the Earth, the heart of the ort cloud is about 50,000 AU. In other words, it is remote. Based on what we know now and can reasonably imagine, there is absolutely no prospect that any human being will visit the edge of the solar system. Ever. It is just too far. And remember, we're talking only about our own solar system, our Milky Way galaxy contains billions of solar systems and there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe.
Well now that I finished a major part of my dissertation, I feel I have more time to return to blogging! So here we are again!
Today someone on reddit mentioned something quite interesting about life in the depth of the ocean which lead to alot of reading on the net. The following are three amazing creatures of the oceans and seas that I want to share.
First, the immortal jellyfish (pictured) that can practically return to its youth after sexual maturity and repeat its biological life-cycle indefinitely! They would actually carry out the transformation in times of hardship and physical damage so that in a sense they would get another chance at things!
Another sea creature worth mentioning amongst the immortals is the lobster. Apparently their DNA contains a gene that will repair deteriorating cells and thus technically, they never age but still continue to grow in size! The article on the lobster end with a brief mention of something known as the Hayflick limit stating that due to this limit we cannot introduce immortality to humanity as it will only lead to cancerous cells. I did a brief research on what the Hayflick limit is and my understanding is that it is a limit to the number of times a human cell can divide (through mitosis) to continue the growing process. Research discovered three stages to a cell's life;
Hayflick found that cells go through three phases. The first is rapid, healthy cell division. In the second phase, mitosis slows. In the third stage, senescence, cells stop dividing entirely. They remain alive for a time after they stop dividing, but sometime after cellular division ends, cells do a particularly disturbing thing: Essentially, they commit suicide. Once a cell reaches the end of its life span, it undergoes a programmed cellular death called apoptosis.
The last mention to the fantastic world beneath the seas and oceans goes to the octopus and their amazing brains. Not only are their brains larger relative to their size than any other animal except for birds and mammals, but they also have areas of their brain completely dedicated to memory and learning. Furthermore, like humans, they have a preference as to whether they're left or right oriented in the sense that there is preference for the use of the right or the left eye. According to the article on Discover;
Such lateralization, corresponding to our right- and left-handedness, suggests specialization in the brain's hemispheres, which is believed to improve its efficiency and which was first considered an exclusively human, then an exclusively vertebrate, attribute.
It is also worth mentioning that like dolphins and dogs, Octopuses enjoy playing and they each have different personalities and characters and thus react differently to different situations. The Youtube video linked to earlier further mentions their ability to detect light from their body rather than their colour blind eyes which just imagining how that would appear is absolutely mind blowing!
We all know that different animals have different ways of communicating with one another, however our understanding of the different languages in the non-human world is very limited to say the least. Wikipedia has quite a good article on animal communication for further reading, but I just want to talk about two animals in this post. I've just stumbled upon this interesting article which is a few months old now about prairie dogs. According to research carried out by a professor in the North Arizona University, prairie dogs have a quite intricate language system - and not just some simple noises, but specific 'words' for specific items that they see. Thus not all danger is described in one word, but each forms of danger is given a name; a falcon, an owl, a human, a coyote, etc. According to the article they can even differentiate between a coyote and a domesticated dog! But it doesn't stop there, the professor decided to test if there were different calls for different humans so he dressed four men in exactly the same clothing except for their t-shirts where each one wore a different coloured shirt. And indeed, the prairie dogs gave a different call for each person! Apparently they describe what they see in their call. It makes me wonder whether it is possible that they actually could maybe invent new words for things not included in their vocabulary? Or is that a bit too far? I don't know!
This article actually reminded me of a very old story I read about honey bees. There was this girl (Barbara Shipman) whose dad was an agricultural researcher working with bees and he always had his daughter involved in his work. However, as fate would have it, the daughter decided to enter the field of mathematics and graduated as a mathematician from the University of Rochester. But that's where she made her greatest discovery in bees language! It's very complicated to go through her methods over here, you really need to read it yourself as I'm not even 100% on it, but apparently bees can perceive not just magnetic fields (which we know alot of animals can see them and use them for directions) but also quantum fields! Fields made by quarks - the tiniest of particles that make up our own atoms! It's mind boggling to say the least and there has been disputes over her conclusions, but it's still a very interesting read non-the-less!
Any one who read George Orwell's book Ninteen Eighty Four is familiar with the term 'Newspeak'. For those who haven't read the book, it's basically a dark vision of a future world ruled by a totalitarian regime that stabilises its rule through constant supervision of its citizens as well as through insuring they remain too busy doing one meaningless task after another thus wont have time to think, wonder or plan. The totalitarian regime also introduced 'Newspeak' which is a simplified language that drastically reduced the number of words in the English dictionary by just removing 'unnecessary' words. Thus basically to retard human intelligence, imagination and creativity by simplifying language and making it as plain and dull as possible. The Wikipedia article on Newspeak explains it as follows.
The basic idea behind Newspeak is to remove all shades of meaning from language, leaving simple dichotomies (pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness, goodthink and crimethink) which reinforce the total dominance of the State. Similarly, Newspeak root words served as both nouns and verbs, which allowed further reduction in the total number of words; for example, "think" served as both noun and verb, so the word thought was not required and could be abolished.
But is Newspeak as bad as it's portrayed? A recent news article on the BBC reminded me of how in our real human history governments did try to forcefully interfer in local languages for one reason or another. The article talks about the government of Taiwan deleting all Simplified Chinese scripts from its agencies texts and using only the more complex traditional Chinese script instead. Obviously this is probably for political reasons more than anything (I'd imagine to insist on their independent identity separate from mainland China), but on the Chinese side, according to the article, traditional Chinese script has been abandoned only in the 1950s for the simplified Chinese. Unlike Newspeak, however, simplification has been done to raise literacy levels rather than retard imagination.
Kemal and the new Turkish alphabet
I can think of another example of a language reformation and that is in Turkey after it won its independence from the Allies in 1923 and established the modern Turkish state. Mustafa Kemal, the founder of modern Turkey, had a more nationalistic agenda to his language reformation. In 1932 he established the Turkish Language Association which aimed to remove all non-Turkish words in the local vocabulary that have established itself under the multi-national Ottoman rule. But not only did Turkish nationalism allowed for the reintroduction of abandoned Turkish words to replace those borrowed from other nationalities - there was more in the Turkish language reform. Mustafa Kemal replaced the Turkish script and alphabet completely from that based on Arabic alphabet and grammar to that of Latin based. There are two reasons for this. First was political; Mustafa Kemal wanted Turkey to move away from the Eastern world and join Europe and the West as a new 'modern' Turkey. The other reason was the complexity of the Arabic language compared to the simplicity of a language based on Latin grammar. Turning to a more simple script allowed literacy rates to increase - or so I'm told (I've never seen any statistics to prove anything though).
I'm really in two minds about this. I can understand the logic that a simpler language will be easier to learn and thus would allow for higher literacy rates, but does it effect imagination and intelligence? Could Shakspear write his plays in Newspeak? The Qura'an itself was revealed to an Arab population who valued poetry and the linguistic arts as the highest form of expression. Infact even today Muslims consider the miracle of the Qura'an to be a linguistic miracle more than anything else. Would simplifying language really be a good educational policy? I really don't know. A part of me prefers the more complex arts and allowing human imagination to wander wherever it wishes. When I started studying Turkish language a while back, I was told that language isn't only a means of communication, but also the way people think. Language is the result of an evolutionary process and reflects culture, ideas, arts and the characters of a people and the more languages you speak the more you can think in different ways. Something doesn't sit right with government interference in language, even if it is to increase literacy rates.
I personally want to learn a computing language and be able to design websites. I tried getting into it but found it too difficult and time consuming that I decided to leave it for another time when I have more free time on my hands. Now I do wish there is a simpler programming language but I have to wonder, does simpler not mean I will be able to do less? Rather than design a very unique website, I would probably only be able to put blocks and buttons with a very simple language. Does not the same apply with human languages only in a non-tangible format that might only prove its negative effects after several generations? It's a scary thought.
Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh developed an artificial brain that can sustain 12 seconds of memory. The brain was formed on silicon discs coated with proteins and later on infused with rat brain cells. The brain cells were taken from the Hippocampus section of the brain which Wikipedia tells us is the component of a mammal's brain that plays an important role in short-term and long-term memory.
The cells were then given time to grow, connect and develop a neural network. This network was then given a short electric shock which in natural circumstances would only last a quarter of a second but instead lasted in the network for 12 whole seconds!
Israel's Arava Power unveiled the country's first commercial solar power plant on Sunday, showing it off to government ministers and dignitaries, and announced plans to erect dozens of other solar array fields, whose total cost could reach $2 billion. The announcement was appropriately made on UN World Environment Day.
The NIS 100 million ($30 million), 4.95 megawatt plant in the agricultural community of Kibbutz Keturah, currently the largest of its kind in Israel, is due to be hooked up to the national grid in the next few weeks. It is the first of about 50 photovoltaic power fields that Arava said it will build throughout the southern Negev desert by the end of 2014.
Approximately 50km north of Eilat, Kibbutz Ketura is situated in the southern part of the Arava region, which is among the sunniest areas of the world. It gets at least 350 days of direct sunlight each year, making it a perfect location for a solar panel field.
The government has said that by 2020 it wants the country to provide 10% of its energy with solar and other renewable energy sources.
In the May/June issue of the Scientific American: Mind magazine there is a brief article about Toxoplasma gondii, a certain single-celled organism that reproduces inside cats but can spread to all warm-blooded animals. This protozoa (a quick Google search says that a protozoa is a single-celled organism but is NOT a bacteria) when not inside a feline's intestine reproducing and raising a happy family will endeavor to effect its host's actions so as to give the protozoa access into a cat. How does it do that? Well according to the article it is able to manipulate the host's brain. In the example of small animals like a mouse, the protozoa can create a complete lose of fear of cats in the mouse's brain and thus result in a higher probability that the mouse will be eaten by a cat allowing the protozoa to enter the cat's body. The article doesn't go into much detail on how it can effect humans but goes on about how it effects smaller animals that can be prey to felines.
I did find another article online however, that does give more information about this particular parasite in a human context. Apparently it does create minor character changes in humans, but nothing fatal to the average person. According to the article from Discover, research suggests the following character changes in people infected by T. gondii.
Carriers tend to show long-term personality changes that are small but statistically significant. Women tend to be more intelligent, affectionate, social and more likely to stick to rules. Men on the other hand tend to be less intelligent, but are more loyal, frugal and mild-tempered. The one trait that carriers of both genders share is a higher level of neuroticism – they are more prone to guilt, self-doubt and insecurity.
A second article, also from Discover (although two years older than the previous article), quotes a different research says the following effect T. gondii has on humans.
Those infected, he found, show a small, but statistically significant, tendency to be more self-reproaching and insecure. Paradoxically, infected women, on average, tend to be more outgoing and warmhearted than controls, while infected men tend to be more jealous and suspicious.
It might seem that such character traits are very minuscule and not worth alot of research time and effort but the first article goes on to say that in certain parts of the world, there is a huge portion of the population infected (67% in Brazil). This would raise a very important question on the meaning of how we look at cultures and people's characters. T. gondii has a prefered climate where it does spread in vast numbers. A small character change to the human population in such a region would certainly have an effect on national character traits and the historic cultural evolution of the region.
Nonetheless, the results are striking and one implicaiton is that climate could have a larger effect on culture than previously thought. Toxoplasma gondii‘s eggs live longer in humid, low regions so variations in climate could influence the global distribution of cultural traits. Perhaps, this could explain why men and women perform more distinct roles in society in countries in warmer climates. Other factors can also affect the risk of infection, including cat ownership and national cuisines that include undercooked meat.
We like to think of culture as something governed by the collective actions of free-thinking and free-acting humans. But Lafferty’s analysis shows us that if environmental factors like parasites can affect our thoughts and actions, no matter how subtly, they can have a strong effect on national cultures. In many cases, these effects could be much stronger than the agents that we normally believe to drive cultural trends. After all, more people around the world are infected with Toxoplasma than are connected to the internet.
On a further note in relation to human judgment (but not so much the involvement of external parasites), this old story seems very relevant. A sex offender in 2002 turned out to have a brain tumor that has been responsible for his perverted habits. Apparently after the tumor was removed he returned to his usual self until around a year later when the tumor returned and he restarted his habit of collecting pornography and harassing women!
Really, what all this tells us is that the brain is such a complex organ and it should never be very easy for us to make hasty judgments on anyone - even though I'm very guilty of it myself.
A friend pointed me towards a recent news item I wasn't aware of. Basically, the (temporarily) ruling military council in Egypt has arrested several women in Tahrir Square and rumors have been circulating that these women have been forcefully subjected to "virginity tests". Today officials in the ruling council have not only admitted that these women went through such "tests" but defended the practice as well!
For years I have always agreed and argued for the theory that humans do not progress through education alone but through entire environmental change. My family in particular, who mainly follow the mainstream politics of Muslim so-called "scholars" have always either argued against the idea or shied away from even discussing the issue. They espoused the idea held by alot of Muslims that to cultivate a progressive human society we need to start from the bottom up, ie, we need to better ourselves and gradually once we reach a highly cultured level within the majority of the population, our leaders and politicians will be reformed automatically.
Yes it's utter bullshit, but what can you do when you have televangelist half-wits in a beard under some dictator's pay, yapping on this nonsense constantly to keep the people from rising up against tyranny?
But due to excessive financial and social pressures, the people in the Arab world can no longer take oppression and have went out with their intrinsic instincts and emotions and rebelled against the tyrants while the "scholars" sat back and watched the show. Some, when it became clear that the protestors will eventually overthrow the regime, have joined the people in protest and pretended to be espousing this all along. Others remained loyal to the despots (him,him and him).
The issue with the "virginity tests" really should come as no surprise as the mentality of the Mubarak era cannot be erased overnight. Even if we overthrow his regime and begin implementing a new more progressive one, we still need time to culture ourselves and enforce the new ideas that such actions are not only unacceptable, but reprehensible and should be actively stopped - not defended! When that happens, then even if a party to a group suggests something as disgusting as this, someone from within the group will insure that this is stopped, reported and fought. Because the people will be cultured by their enforced environment that such a thing is inhuman. And it will be unimaginable that the ruling party will defend such a practice openly!
The point of this post I suppose, is the question; what is the next step? In the argument of nature vs nurture, I am firm believer in the stronger position nurturing has over the nature of a being. The next step, I think, is to ask ourselves what kind of environment do we want our people to be nurtured in. We then have to apply a governing body to provide, protect and propagate this particular environment so as to finally create the progressive human society we all aim to achieve.
The German government has recently decided to abandon nuclear power which currently provides a quarter of its energy needs completely by 2022 and become fully dependent on renewable energy. Although they might keep one plant on stand-by incase renewable energy might not be sufficient for winter months.
The Financial Times further reports that this move "will come as a blow to Germany’s “big four” nuclear power companies, RWE, Eon, Vattenfall and EnBW." Personally I don't know much about these nuclear companies but I am aware that Eon does invest alot into renewable energy alternatives. As typical in a Capitalist market, innovation and development is only done in great strides when it becomes profitable. Now that nuclear power (at least in Germany) is in its dying days, I'm sure alot of other energy companies will be investing heavily on cleaner and renewable sources.
Germany is the largest economy in Europe and one of the strongest in the world. I would hazard a guess and say that this decision by the German government will be infectious throughout Europe and other EU countries will soon follow suite although reading this article might give a different opinion as it suggests that France has a greater dependence on nuclear energy than Germany.
Still, I do hope in the very least a serious plans to gradually reduce dependence on non-renewable sources will be implemented and a time-line put in place in other countries for the complete adoption of renewable energy is primary sources. I would also say that the strongest economy in Europe abandoning nuclear energy and forcing the market to invest in renewable energy will push companies towards new innovations that make renewable energy more efficient and alot cheaper to build and run. If this happens, it could be this scientific breakthrough, triggered by the German market, which will make renewable energy more appealing to different countries of the world.
The experiment, which spanned more than a decade, suggests that the electron differs from being perfectly round by less than 0.000000000000000000000000001 cm. This means that if the electron was magnified to the size of the solar system, it would still appear spherical to within the width of a human hair.
The physicists from Imperial's Centre for Cold Matter studied the electrons inside molecules called Ytterbium Fluoride. Using a very precise laser, they made careful measurements of the motion of these electrons. If the electrons were not perfectly round then, like an unbalanced spinning-top, their motion would exhibit a distinctive wobble, distorting the overall shape of the molecule. The researchers saw no sign of such a wobble.
According to the article, the purpose of this recent research is to understand anti-matter which was theorized by scientists to have been created in the same quantity as normal matter after the Big Bang but for some reason is only found in very tiny traces. If the electrons were found to be not as round as expected then scientists hoped that that would explain the lack of anti-matter in the visible solar system.
In another article (posted in 2008) that gives a better background on the relationship between electrons and anti-matter, it explains that "electrons encountering positrons (their antimatter equivalent) annihilate each other, with their mass converted into high energy gamma rays." Furthermore, the largest collection of anti-matter is a cloud near the galactic center.
Now what I'm not understanding is; in a universe made up primarily of matter, how can even the smallest cloud of anti-matter exist? Surely it's gradually being destroyed by border contact with the surrounding matter which exists in greater number? Unless there is a vacuum border between the two that stops contact? And if it existed in equal quantities after the Big Bang (as being theorized), why are the resultant quantities today of the two matters so different?
Ariel Merari, a psychologist who fought in the Arab-Israeli war of 1973 and has spent the past three decades studying the attitudes of terrorists. Some of his most notable work is on Palestinian suicide bombers. He has spoken to friends and families of suicide bombers, and even to would-be attackers who failed to detonate their explosive belts before being captured.
His first conclusion is that Palestinian suicide bombers are usually not suicidal. They aren't depressed, or otherwise mentally ill, nor do they tend to be drug or alcohol abusers. What's more, these supposed Islamic warriors aren't especially religious. By and large, they didn't suggest religion as their primary motivation, nor was there much hope of a glorious afterlife.
I have no doubt in mind that things would have played out very differently in Libya without intervention from NATO forces. I do remember my anxiousness when Gaddaffi's troops and mercenaries were closing in on Benghazi as NATO and the UN were discussing the legality of intervention and the kind of intervention required. It felt like they were only teasing the Arabs as they waited for the last opportune moment to strike at Gaddaffi and save the Libyan rebellion. But that doesn't change the fact that they did.
And again it is also true that if it wasn't for alot of the previous interferences, alliances and support from the Western powers throughout modern history alot of the current (and past) tyrants wont be haunting the Arab world, but they are.
And at a crucial moment in Arab history, the Western powers give what can be viewed as a mixed message. While president Obama of the US gave just a few days ago what appears to be a very supportive message to the Arab people in a speech at the State Department, David Cameron (the US prime minister) welcomes a tyrants who crushed protesters calling for democracy in Bahrain. Sure we cannot take the whole 'West' into one basket and say they should all have the same foreign policy, but at the same time there is a common degree of agreement amongst the major Western powers on what direction to take in whichever item in question. The UK outwardly does claim to support Arab democratic movements as William Hague (the foreign secretary of the UK) a few days ago called on the international community to support the democratic movements in the Middle East.
So what is going on?
Well, I would say there is no mixed message really. The Western powers have based their internal and external policies on a capitalist ideology. Their market capitalism has one policy and one policy only that we can be sure will be consistent; they'll support whatever they see as more profitable. Again, returning to the UK for an example (uncharacteristically they seem to be very bad at keeping blatant Capitalism under the table), Cameron on February this year (very soon after Mubarak was overthrown) made a visit to Egypt under the banner of "promoting Arab democracy". But he didn't go alone, he went with a bunch of arms dealers tagging along! So looking at Bahrain, we can see why Western powers will not be attacking the tyrannical monarchs of that country.
(a) Because of Saudi Arabia's support to the al-Khalifa royal family (and Saudi Arabia is THE biggest Western allie in the Middle East - I would even say closer to the West than Israel).
(b) Because the Bahraini royals are themselves very close allies to the West. Yes, so was Mubarak - and this is why we didn't hear a peep out of the West against Mubarak until after he stepped down and/or it was clear he will be stepping down.
(c) The protesters are mainly (but not exclusively) from the Shia community of Bahrain - which is natural as the majority of Bahrain's population is Shia Muslims. I do not really know the politics of the protesters and I do not want to make baseless assumptions, but there might be a degree of fear from the West that Iran might expand its influence if Bahrain gets ruled by Shia Muslims. Again, I do not know what the politics of the Bahrain protesters are, but I would assume this is something Western powers are calculating on. One thing I think is for sure, a Bahrain ruled by a Shia Muslim will not be on as good terms with Saudi Arabia as the al-Khalifa family (not because of them being Shia, but because of Saudi Arabia being Saudi Arabia). Whether that would mean they would jump into an Iranian bed is a different question which I don't know enough to answer.
So in conclusion, it really comes down to profit. The Western powers will not support anyone for any ideological or moral reasons. If economic or political power can be profited from in supporting one cause over another, then they will follow that cause no matter what morals, ethics or their own ideological pursuit of democracy calls for.
Today I've learned a new thing about eggs and their colours that I'd like to share here. Obviously we're all familiar with the brown and white eggs in the supermarkets. My parents once told me that the brown eggs are from free range chicken while the white eggs are from chicken fed and raised in cages.
There is an element of truth in that, but the idea behind it is false. It is true that caged hens and mass egg producing industries generally ship the white colour eggs, but that has nothing to do with feeding and environment, but with the type of chicken being used. There isn't only one single type of chickens but a variety of sub-species. The ones producing the white eggs are known as Leghorn and they require less feed to produce eggs (thus more economical, thus more favored by commercial producers). The brown eggs (from Barred Rocks hens) require more feeding and the hens don't produce as many eggs as the Leghorn thus are usually available in less commercialized stores or viewed as the organic or free range alternative.
Now comes the surprise - there are yet more variety of hens that produce even more colours! Greenish-blue eggs and chocolate brown eggs. The Araucanas hens produce a very lovely greenish eggs and if you cross breed you would get an even larger range of naturally colour eggs!
I have no idea if there is any difference in taste, but it really makes me want to have my own farm one day and raise all the different kind of hens there are!
The Washington Post has an article about al Jazeera's news coverage of the Arab Spring. According to the article, al Jazeera didn't give enough coverage to the news in Bahrain when the Saudi army marched in to help quell the protests.
Well just a quick point I would like to make in this relation; I obviously support completely clear and transparent journalism with absolutely no bounds or limitations. But for god's sake cut al-Jazeera a little slack! Yes there is a degree of bias, but I doubt it's intentional or part of any agenda within the channel's management. The Arab world is still largely under oppressive rule in a lot of places and to a large degree pressure does exist in Qatar, especially with a despotic neighbor like the Saud family. I, as any reasonable person, wished there was more aggressive reporting on the Bahrain massacres committed by both the Bahraini and the Saudi tyrants, but for obvious reasons al-Jazeera was probably not allowed.
In summary; yes there is bias and it's unfortunate, but I don't blame al-Jazeera. I think they're doing a good job for a news company based in the Middle East.
This is an old post from a blog I follow, The Arabist. I had the post bookmarked and today as I was cleaning and tidying up my Google Reader/Gmail/Bookmarks folders in my account I stumbled upon it and thought it's worthy to post on my blog, at least for future reference.
China's production of green technologies has grown by a remarkable 77 per cent a year, according to the report, which was commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature and which will be unveiled on Monday at an industry conference in Amsterdam.
"The Chinese have made, on the political level, a conscious decision to capture this market and to develop this market aggressively," said Donald Pols, an economist with the WWF.
It seems as the world's attention is turning towards sustainability and renewable energy, a market is gradually starting in green technology. I guess this is all what is needed to push something in a capitalist economy.
