May Musings - 05
I’ve spent a lot of today knee deep in a couple of creative projects: one, reworking a script that I’m developing with the amazing Tania Safi called SAME SAME, and the other a more corporate podcast that I will be sharing soon, inshallah. I’m also stoked to share that my latest episode as host of the BBC World Service show ‘The Conversation’ was released today: on the politics of body hair. I talk to two different women, one Irish and one Turkish, about their relationship with body hair, it’s removal, and it’s relationship to feminism. Would love for you to listen and share your thoughts!
Click through to listen to the episode
How has everyone’s first day of Ramadan been? I’ve kept my energy expenditure low, and have bittersweetly welcomed that moment when you wake up and think - oh, I have all this spare time because I don’t need to eat or drink anything before I Ieave the house…
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If today has taught me anything, it is in the importance of setting aside one’s ego in creative work. It’s a relatively new thing for me, in the sense that the profession I was trained in - engineering - is very much about numbers, an outcome achieved by following a set process that will allow you to arrive at the correct conclusion. ‘Creative’ or artistically creative work seems to operate quite differently in that we each need to find processes that work for ourselves and the specific thing we are working on at the time. Now, I may be creating a false binary here between the creative and the technical, but I certainly feel the shift.
The good news is, when you are able to focus on the work and not the ego, the outcome is invariably improved. Yallah, Allah give us strength to keep putting ego aside.
Khair, inshallah.
May Musings - 04
Ah, it’s upon us! The night before Ramadan, a month that seems to come around quicker every year but almost always finishes too soon…
I’m in equal parts excited and nervous for the holy month ahead of us, inshallah. Excited, because it’s an opportunity to earn blessings on blessings, a moment for a spiritual detox, a month for family and friends and community unlike any other. It brings Muslims around the world together in shared practice and experience, moments where you share dates with strangers at iftar (the moment of breaking fast), nights spent on rugs picking away at food with your fingers until the morning adhan (call to prayer), evenings swaying during taraweeh as you will yourself to stay focused (you have eaten so much for iftar your eyes simply want to rest, just for a minute…). Ah, Ramadan is the sweetest of months.
However, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I was nervous. Fasting in London is an 18.5 hour stretch (dawn till dusk during summer is punishing), and it’s no small thing - especially after a lifetime of the easy Australian timezone. 18.5 hours without food or water means you have to make sure you’re eating enough during the night, it means managing energy during the day, and it definitely means no coffee all month. Admittedly, not everybody does the 18.5 hours - some folks follow the Meccan hours which are a manageable 14.5 hours or so. I think I’ll start on 18.5 hours inshallah and see how I go. Inshallah, Rabana gives us all enough strength to help us through.
Spare a thought also for those in Sudan at the moment; not only the ones in the sit-in, continuing to protest, but in the rest of the country where temperatures are on average 45 degrees +, where the electricity cuts out on the regular and the lines for petrol stretch not just around the block, but pretty much around the city. Surely, as they say in Sudan, fasting in the Sahara desert means a VIP entry into heaven…
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Ramadan Kareem, all. May Allah bless us all this month, inshallah. May He make it easy for us, may we find it rejuvenating and wholesome, may we be with our friends and family safely inshallah. May we tread softly on this earth, may we tread lightly with those we love, may we find grace in all that we have been blessed with, inshallah. If you’re a non-Muslim - feel free to wish your Muslim colleagues ‘Ramadan Mubarak’ or even a Happy Ramadan!
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Just a final sidenote - if your Muslim colleagues and friends aren’t fasting - please don’t question or pry. We are all on our own journey with our own unique circumstances and would all appreciate your discretion. Khair, inshallah.
May Musings - 03
Oh, I really am just scraping in writing this at 10.45pm. Gotta stick to that daily commitment though!
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Big day of themes today, folks. Binged watched Top Boy on my trip back from Malaysia to London, then ended up at a protest in the British Museum against stolen artifacts (I found my brethren, folks who love those anti-colonial jokes!) and wrapped it all up with a #SudanUprising solidarity fundraising event at Rumi’s Cave…
A lot to think about and process. Forgive me, as my thoughts are still scattered around the city…
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A day like today makes me appreciate the diversity that London has to offer, and recognise the privilege I have to walk between various worlds within the city. Top Boy, a show I highly recommend, reminded me that privilege of identity fluidity - born of my parents’ choices and Allah’s blessings - was something not easily accessible by all. My brief and sardonic reunion with the British Museum reminded me of the institutional injustices that continue to rage around us, seemingly impenetrable to intervention by mere mortals. But the Sudanese event at the end of the day was a reminder that all institutions are fallible, and almost all empires fall. It also reminded me, as events like these so often do, that we are never as alone as we think we are. Whether that be one’s confusion as a member of the diaspora, struggling to chant in your mother tongue, whether it’s the isolation of depression and the battle in your own head or whether it is simply wondering what space you’re allowed to take up in a room or city… giving voice to that confusion and isolation has an almost chemically transformative effect. Suddenly, it’s not your burden alone. It is never your burden alone.
It is never your burden alone.
May Musings - 02
I write to you from a cafe like many other cafes I’ve sat in before: fast wifi, high ceilings, a choice of coffee beans from Colombia, Kenya or Ethiopia. Around me are a plush couch, and simple yet wonderfully comfortable wooden tables and chairs dotted around the mezzanine level, each seat conveniently placed next to a power plug for the many laptops people just like me a tap-tap-tapping away on.
It’s like any hipster cafe I’ve been in before, in Melbourne, New York, London or San Fransisco… but I’m in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Instead of the sounds of trains and trams, I hear the clap of thunder momentarily cutting through the roar of the monsoonal rains, and I’m at once both intrigued and pensive about the ubiquity of the hipster cafe aesthetic. On one hand, I love that I can find a decent coffee in almost any city around the world (although some cities I have to work harder than others!). On the other, I wonder about the underbelly of the global ‘freelance’ lifestyle: on where, despite the believe that we are ‘alternative’, doing something ‘different’ and experiencing cultures and lifestyles outside our own, we still seek places that are familiar no matter where we are? I mean, I’ve found a hipster cafe and ridden a ‘Grab’ (Malaysia’s version of Uber) here - I could have just walked down the road to a street food vendor and camped out there, right?
But sometimes I think - life is already full of friction and challenge, full of meeting new people on a regular basis and seeing new things (I live in a new continent, after all!) - why not treat myself to something familiar? Jury is still out on this - how do you experience a new city that you travel to for work?
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I spent a significant part of an hour reading this article on the Murdoch empire. Have you read it yet? The story of the Murdochs fascinates me, as much as it frustrates and in some ways, angers me - and so I finds exposes such as this compelling and enlightening. As the article suggests, the influence of Rupert Murdoch on Western (Anglo, shall we say) democracies cannot be overstated really. The question I am left with, is what do we do about it? Is it possible to build another empire in the same way, if one started today? Is it possible to build an analogous empire ethically, one bound by morals and a framework based on social justice? I’m not sure. I think these may be questions which scratch the surface of deeper philosophical queries to do with power and the reason one has for living… but alas. We’re only on day two on May musings, folks. Let’s ease into it, shall we?
Another article I found useful was this one in the Harvard Business Review on the true challenges of building an innovative culture. In some ways, it ties in with I was talking about yesterday re discipline.
Fascinating twitter thread on the breaking of the engima code and a reminder of how so often, no matter how well we design a machine, it comes down human error (or just, the human condition)?
I’m also on the Board of the Electronic Frontiers Australia and we’re doing a couple of profiles of folk in the tech industry in Australia ahead of the federal election. If you’re part of said industry and wouldn’t mind sharing a little about yourself, email Lyndsey here! Thank you!
Fresh-faced selfie from said hipster cafe hashtag nofilter (is it glow, or a sheen of sweat? We’ll never know)
May musings
Chillin’ like a villian. A very warm, wrapped up villian cos it’s cold out, you know?
It’s been a long time since I’ve committed to any sort of ‘write every day’ challenge. While yes, that might be due to a lack of time, if I’m really honest, it’s more likely due to a lack of discipline. I find, like many others, the length of time it takes for me to complete a tasks depends on the amount of time I have at hand. Alas, I’m too flexible that way.
While lying in bed last night, after listening to approximately 10.5 hours of podcasts (the perks of travelling alone), Seth Godin’s voice popped into my ear. Not physically, mind - in that case, I would have had some serious questions for hotel security. No, I’d been listening to the American author on one of the podcast episodes I’d heard earlier that day, and something he had said stuck with me. Seth talked about his commitment to blogging every single day, and the discipline of doing so for year in, year out. I remember thinking at the time ‘ah, capitalism! Making us think that we all need to be productive, pff!’. But then my mother’s voice pipped up (cheeky!) with the counter argument. ‘Isn’t praying 5 times a day doing the same thing day in, day out, regardless of the weather or a bank holiday? Don’t make discipline about capitalism Yassmina, it’s not all about the problems in the system!’
Now, although I may disagree with my mother the appropriate moment to bring up structural inequalities, her imaginary voice did have a point worth paying attention to. Because, as much as it pains me to admit (and yes, this isn’t on brand) between you and me, sometimes I think I dismiss certain activities as ‘capitalist productivity hacks’ simply to indulge my inner sloth.
I mean, I love talking about how I’m not a morning person, and how all morning people really need to keep the joys of the morning to themselves. The irony is, of course, is that on the days I do deign to wake up early, I bloody love it! And I’ll damn well tell anyone within earshot. Ah, the goodness of the crisp morning air and, oh, the glory of empty streets. Hypocrisy, you say? Never heard of it! Is it the name of a new cafe? I’ve been known to roll my eyes at people who talk to me about their running schedules, but when I’m feeling fit and can do a 10km in under an hour I’m the best version of myself. And don’t get me started on yoga…
So why, and how? Why does some part of me rail so hard against personal habits that are clearly beneficial for people - including me!
Perhaps I just don’t like being told what to do. Inner rebellious child, independent woman, whatever - yes, that’s a part of it. But I don’t think it’s the whole story. If I would hazard a guess, it would be the lack of humility that seems to come with the cult of productivity (I can hear my mum’s voice telling me to reign it in again…).
Hear me out though. Muslims praying five times a day could re-frame their practice as a productivity hack for sure: get up early (before the sun comes up), do your meditation, then start the day. Move your body in a smooth fashion, kinda like yoga, five times a day. Focus. Breath. Exercise. You know? It’s the perfect package. But the way it’s talked about in faith is completely different to the way similar practices are talked about in the culture of the tech/productivity/start up world. In faith, it’s seen as a personal thing, a private invitation, not a competition or a challenge. It’s not a matter of worth, it’s more a matter of practice, coupled with a reminder that your time on this earth is short, and that you exist to serve. That comes with quite a heavy dose of humility, you know?
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So that all being said... I’m here to tell you that I’ve committed to writing a blog post every day this month (is the joke on you, or on me, I’m not sure!). It’ll probably be random (like this), but in an effort to get myself off twitter and writing more than an instagram caption length, I’m hoping this will be a space for me to get my writing juices flowing again, inshallah. Also, it’s going to be Ramadan, so I need some ‘inside’ activities to keep me busy.
Let me know what you want to hear about. I can share links to what I’m reading, thoughts about current affairs, what I’m up to and where I’m at.
Bismillah… here we go!
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Oh before I leave - here are some interesting pieces that I’ve read recently that may tickle your fancy.
The Friendship that made Google Huge
The Independent: The uprising in Sudan is about a lot more than bread prices
For many in Sudan, its current situation is virtually unliveable, with cash and fuel shortages galore, astronomical and unpredictable inflation, and basic services that sometimes do more harm than good
Source: AP
It’s been almost 30 years since the largely bloodless coup that brought current Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, into power. But however peaceful his ascent, the same cannot be said for his reign, and the current protests that have swept the nation are a testament to this.
It’s 11 days since the start of the protests in the northern Sudanese town of Atbara – Amnesty International reported the death toll during the first five days to be 37. While the unrest and anger show no signs of abating, the historical context is critical to understanding the difficulty in achieving the protestors’ wishes for not only Bashir’s removal, but a change in Sudan’s fortunes.
Sudan’s complex history – tribally, religiously and socially – make it different to many of its Arab and north African counterparts. My family’s story of fortune and diasporic displacement is in part a reflection of these dynamics, but our story is not unique, and can often be drawn back to a name many Sudanese are familiar with: Hassan al-Turabi.
Although Bashir led the military coup that brought him to power in 1989, the real godfather of the current system is Turabi, the head of the National Islamic Front (NIF) at the time. Turabi, the leader of Sudan’s political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, had a deeply ideological mission to prosecute: the Arabisation and Islamisation of Sudan, at all costs. It was this politicised, frankly, un-Sudanese approach to Islam and the lack of safety and future it portended that, less than two years later, would drive my parents and I out of our homeland.
My parents were city folk: part of the educated and professional class, my father an engineering lecturer with a PhD from London’s Imperial College and a my mother a successful city-based architect, both graduates of the University of Khartoum. They were part of an active and vibrant segment of society: products of a system that for a brief period of time, worked. It was this very segment of society that, once in power, the NIF immediately and systematically targeted and dismantled, understanding the threat that they posed. The middle classes – the doctors, lawyers, accountants and engineers – were critical to the downfall of Sudan’s previous military leader, General Jaafar Numeiri. Turabi and Bashir wouldn’t let that happen again.
Leaders of unions, public service employees, academic staff – anyone who refused to dance to the NIF tune – was fired, threatened, disappeared. The intellectual class was disastrously drained from the nation, leaving an enfeebled public service, health sector and education system.
This brain drain led to the diaspora that I am a part of – young people who grew up outside Sudan to parents who were brought up in a country that is unrecognisable to the one that we see today. Many of us are also the people you’ll find on social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter, amplifying voices on the ground as much as possible, relaying information from our family WhatsApp groups, hashtagging in both our mother tongues. For many of us – for myself at least – this is personal: the current regime has squandered Sudan’s wealth and potential. It is responsible for the deaths of an unknowable number of its citizens and ultimately, destroyed the country we could have grown up safely in, and known as home.
But this story isn’t about the diaspora. This is about the nation that many of us still do call home, no matter how tenuous the physical link. Although the trigger for the current spate of protests were bread prices, the underlying frustration that has fuelled people’s anger is deeper, and much longer in the making. For many in Sudan, its current situation is virtually unliveable, with cash and fuel shortages galore, astronomical and unpredictable inflation, and basic services that sometimes do more harm than good. People don’t chant “we either live free or die like real men” and mean it, unless they’re truly desperate.
But Bashir stepping down would not be the end to the woes of the Sudanese people. The oil revenue money that hasn’t gone into social development has gone into national security, armed forces and weaponry. Bashir’s regime – split from Turabi in the early 2000s – no longer has a particularly Islamist agenda. It seems largely interested in holding on to power alone, and has the firepower to have done so effectively for almost three decades.
The question is therefore, two-fold.
Is it possible to topple Bashir? Possibly. Although the social infrastructure of previous successful popular uprisings, like the unions and professional classes, are no longer as active as in the 1980s, the grassroots movement is still powerful, especially when many feel like there is no where else to turn. Buoyed by the diaspora’s involvement and the freedom of communication through social media, Bashir’s resignation is a definite possibility.
The second and more pertinent question, however, is much more difficult to answer. How do the Sudanese people dismantle the current infrastructure of what is ostensibly a police state, and what will it take to rebuild the nation into one that can enable it to truly realise its potential?
That will take more than one article to answer, unfortunately. But unless given deep and thoughtful consideration from across Sudan’s diverse tribal, social and religious groups, the land of my birth will fall back into the same cycle it has seen since independence. Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes.
Guardian Essay: I wanted to make jokes about my destroyed career, but all I felt was grief
Ushered out of my job, my mental health spiralling, reputation in shambles, I felt a deep, cavernous sense of loss for my once optimistic self.
I recently spent some time in my childhood home of Brisbane. As we drove around the soft bend leading up to my family’s double brick house, I couldn’t help but reminisce. I’d travelled on this road many a time on almost all forms of transport: driving in my new Alfa Romeo at 3am in the morning, sneaking back into the house from a late-night session (and by session I mean study session, OK? I was an actual certified nerd), walking to the bus stop when that Alfa Romeo lived up to its reputation by inevitably breaking down, and running 2km loops around the block when I was in that short-lived “maybe-one-day-I’ll-do-a-marathon” phase.
Sitting in the passenger seat of the family car, my younger brother grown and behind the wheel, watching the familiar houses and trees glide by, I grew nostalgic.
How was 15-year-old Yassmina, running around this block, to know that a decade later, these streets would hold more than simple, happy memories of early morning jogging sessions accompanied by the soundtrack of feet lightly padding along the pavement, neatly wrapped in the still silence of suburbia?
How was 20-year-old Yassmina to know that five years later, her hard-won engineering degree would be the last thing that people knew about her, not the first? That six years later, she would have walked away from her dream of working on a Formula One team, ushered out of her job on an oil rig, squeezed out of her newfound role as a TV broadcaster, her mental health spiralling, reputation in shambles, and with a Wikipedia page that mostly talked about “controversies”?
How was 26-year-old Yassmina to know that a year later she would be returning to the country of her citizenship to eulogise a career she didn’t even know was coming to an end?
As my brother parked the black Honda Civic, I was overcome with a tidal wave of heaviness, a blanket made of lead that seemed to smother my soul. There was a strange metallic taste in my mouth that I couldn’t quite name, and it wasn’t until I lay in my bed that evening, the single bed I had lain in every night for over a decade, that it hit me. Moonlight was shining through the blinds, glinting on tears that threatened to spill. The weight was more than just jet lag – I was in mourning. What a strange feeling indeed.
I could feel my face furrowing as I tried to make sense of my emotions. I swallowed, allowing my tears to run down my cheeks and turn the pale pillow cover a darker shade of blue, and I attempted to reckon with reality. What was this deep, cavernous sense of loss that had opened up in my chest? What was this ache in my lungs, making every breath feel like I was drowning, trying to take in air through a snorkel that was rapidly filling up with water? Why did this whole house, this whole street, this whole city now feel foreign to me, like it was only a place I’d visited in my dreams?
This was grief, but it was not just my career I was grieving. I was grieving my past self. It was the baby Yassmina I had lost, a resolutely positive and perhaps blindly optimistic young person, a soul unburdened by the knowledge of what the world does to people who don’t quite fit the mould and who want us all to be a little better. I had lost an innocence I didn’t even know I had.
Is it better to have been innocent and lost it, than to not have been innocent at all? In all honesty, I don’t know.
I wanted this eulogy to be funny. I wanted to bid farewell to a Formula One career that waited for all the lights to turn on but never quite got off the starting mark. I wanted to say goodbye to a professional engineering pathway that many don’t know the details of, but that makes me very proud. I wanted to commemorate a broadcasting job that took us all by surprise, as it turned out that I was halfway decent at it. I wanted to talk about the highs and the lows, the bits that make me laugh, the times that gave it all meaning. And there are lots of those moments. But when I sat down to write this eulogy, all that came out was grief.
‘How was 20-year-old Yassmina to know that five years later, her hard-won engineering degree would be the last thing that people knew about her, not the first?’ Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
It poured out of my fingers and soaked these pages, like rainwater in a drought-stricken desert. It’s actually annoying, really. I’m quite tired of this grief business. I thought I had bid farewell to this traveller. But grief is a visitor that overstays its welcome, and no matter how much subtle hinting at the time, it’s still splayed out on your couch, eating nachos and getting guacamole on your carpet. Turns out grief does what it wants, and pays no attention to schedules or social niceties.
Grief will turn up when you least expect it – you’re on your way out to a dinner date, and ding-dong, there it is, at your door, walking in uninvited. You’re having lunch with friends, and then poof! It apparates next to you and dominates the conversation for the next hour, paying no attention whatsoever to what you were talking about before. Hell, you could be watching Happy Feet 2 on a plane, and grief will pop out of the oxygen compartment above, wave its hands in your face and make you miss the rest of the damn film. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything.
Part of me also doesn’t want this eulogy to be about anything at all, because that would be admitting that those past versions of myself are gone. Done, dusted, finito. I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Are we ever really ready to let go? That’s the thing about death. It’s kinda like grief. A terrible houseguest. It just turns up, and you’re expected to have the kettle on and the right kind of biscuits on hand. I mean, c’mon man. Cut a sister a break! Send me a calendar invite or something at least, so I can make sure I’m presentable. But no. Death, pain, grief: the bloody three musketeers that they are, they give zero fucks about your plans. It’s brutal, but I guess it’s the only way to ever really level up in this life. If you don’t know, now you know, sister.
My past lives might be dead but I am not. I’m very much still alive, and that is a gift that I cannot bear to waste
In Islam, when someone dies, we say “Ina lilahi, wa ina lani rajiun”. It roughly translates to: We are for Allah, and to him we shall return. I wondered if I could apply this to my past self, or my various iterations of careers, and then I mentally slapped myself for my indulgence. Girl, get a hold of yourself! You ain’t dead yet! This is eulogy for your career, you indecisive millennial, not you. You’re still here, alive and kicking Alhamdulilah, no matter how much some may wish otherwise. So act like it.
I got an Instagram direct message on Friday, just before I got the plane from London to Australia. It read as follows: “My Name Is Nelson, and I’m a big fan. Do you mind if I ask just one favour? Please Reply, I love You.”
Then: “Go to Flinders St Station, Cut Your Wrists and Let them bleed out so we can all watch you die. Lest We Forget. Hopefully I’ll be able to distinguish you from all the other Sudanese Niggers, but I know you’ll be the only ape wearing a ridiculous towel over your head.”
Nelson, I’m sorry to inform you that this specific favour will not be granted, darling boy, though I may be wearing a ridiculous towel on my head, because well, that’s very on-brand. My past lives might be thoroughly dead, cooked, roasted, their remains served on a platter for all to feast on, but in this moment, I am not. I’m very much still alive, and that is a gift that I cannot bear to waste, and in the words of the great Hannah Gadsby, there’s nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself.
I now think of the death of baby Yassmina as a controlled burn, in the tradition of the First Nations people who are the custodians of this land. They understood that sometimes for change and regeneration, you have to raze the existing growth to the ground and let the new take root. And oh, yes, those flames are searing and yes, sometimes, I still hear the crackle and pop of burning flesh.
But I’m starting to get used to it, as my careers have a habit of going up in flames. So why do I keep playing with fire? Well, perhaps my previous analogy was slightly off. This is no controlled burn, no regenerative wildfire. It appears that I live in a burning house. Death lives down the road, pain is my roommate and grief is always turning up uninvited. But we’re friends now. We bicker, we fight, we make each other laugh. And I wouldn’t be who I am today without them.
So bye-bye baby Yassmina. Bye bye, straighty-180 engineer, toothy-smiled TV presenter, giggling Good Muslim Girl who thought that her trio posse of innocence, positivity and optimism were all she needed. I’ve got new friends now. But your old friends are welcome to visit, of course. Maybe, maybe they can even stay. Maybe, we can get to know each other. Come through, I’ll put the kettle on.
This is an edited version of a speech given at the Melbourne writers’ festival event, Eulogy for my Career, on 26 August
Crisis support services can be reached 24 hours a day: Lifeline 13 11 14; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78
Huffington Post: #JusticeForNoura
What do we know about Noura Hussein? The 19-year-old Sudanese woman is currently on death row in Omdurman, Sudan, for killing a man in self-defense. She was convicted of murdering her husband, who raped her on their “honeymoon.”
This was originally published on the Huffington Post.
What do we know about Noura Hussein?
The 19-year-old Sudanese woman is currently on death row in Omdurman, Sudan, for killing a man in self-defense. She was convicted of murdering her husband, who raped her on their “honeymoon.”
When she was 16, Noura’s family attempted to force her to marry a man, despite the fact that Islam prohibits marriage without consent. Refusing the marriage, she ran 155 miles away from her family home to a town called Sennar. She lived with her aunt for three years, determined to complete her high school education and with her eyes on further studies. In 2017, she received word that the wedding plans had been cancelled and that she was safe to return home.
It was a cruel trick. On her return, Noura found the wedding ceremony underway and was given away to the same groom she had rejected three years earlier.
Defiant, Noura refused to consummate the wedding for a number of days. Her husband became increasingly aggressive, and before the week was over, forced himself onto his teenage wife. With the help of his two brothers and a cousin who held her down, her husband raped her.
When he returned the next day to attempt to rape her again, Noura escaped to the kitchen and grabbed a knife. In the altercation that followed, the man sustained fatal knife wounds. Noura went to her family; they disowned her and turned her over to the police. She was held in Omdurman jail until April 29, 2018, when she was found guilty of premeditated murder. On May 10, the man’s family was offered a choice: either accept monetary compensation for the injury caused, or the death penalty. The family chose to sentence Noura to death. Noura’s legal team has until May 25 to submit an appeal.
After the verdict was announced, members of the Sudanese community, at home and abroad, called for mercy. Grassroots activists have been collecting signatures on a petition in an effort to pressure the Sudanese government to intervene. The #JusticeForNoura campaign has collected almost 800,000 signatures and support from the likes of supermodel Naomi Campbell.
Since Noura’s sentence was handed down on May 10, broader international pressure has also mounted. Several U.N. groups, including U.N. Women, UNFPA and the U.N. Office of the Special Adviser on Africa appealed for clemency in the case. The U.N. human rights office said that it has become ‘increasingly concerned for the teen’s safety, that of her lawyer and other supporters’ and argued that imposing the death penalty in Noura’s case despite clear evidence of self-defense would constitute an arbitrary killing. Amnesty International has also gotten involved, collecting letters from people around the world asking for Noura’s release. Over 150,000 letters have reportedly been sent to Sudan’s Ministry of Justice.
“Many have asked if the petitions and noise will make any difference. There is precedence that the international pressure will help.”
Many have asked if the petitions and noise will make any difference. There is precedence that the international pressure will help: In 2014, a Christian Sudanese woman, Meriam Ibrahim, was spared execution after international outrage at the sentence. Stories like this are what keep campaigners going. With intimidation and societal pushback from the Sudanese National Intelligence Security Services (NISS), which banned the lead attorney, Adil Mohamed Al-Imam, from appearing in a press conference, it is incumbent on the global community to highlight these cases and amplify the voices of those calling for justice.
Noura’s story is heartbreaking, but sadly it is not wholly uncommon. What is unusual about her story, as other activists have pointed out, is that Noura fought back. In Sudan, almost one in three women are married before they turn 18, and marital rape is not yet illegal. Noura’s story is one of personal courage and conviction, and an opportunity to shine a spotlight once more on the fight to eradicate child marriage, forced marriage and marital rape.
Among the activists and campaigners working on the #JusticeForNoura campaign, there is hope that the case will change things beyond Noura’s individual situation. The window for those changes can rapidly evaporate, however, if the international spotlight moves on before Noura’s death penalty sentence is lifted.
Noura’s case speaks to the strict gender roles and expectations placed on Sudanese women and reflects the tension between individual courageous acts and a system that is not set up for substantive equality. Despite relatively high levels of representation in parliament, Sudan is one of a handful of countries still not party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The deeply patriarchal society is also governed by a pluralistic legal system, which uses a protectionist approach toward women in society, rather than the transformative approach advocated by Muslim women’s rights groups like Musawah.
A simplistic reading of the situation might reflect on the horrific nature of Noura’s case and assign blame to Sudanese society, the nation’s socioeconomics or perhaps even Islam. However, the societal conditions and norms that have allowed this sequence of events to occur are not unique, and in fact, even developed nations are not all signatories to CEDAW. Violence against women can be traced to a root cause: gender inequality. Where women are not politically, culturally and economically equal to men, they will be subject to gendered violence, regardless of their faith, race or nationality. Fighting for Noura means fighting for a global society where women and children live free from all forms of violence and have meaningful decision-making power; where they are full participants in society, family and state.
This is not a case of Noura, or women like her, needing to be ”saved” from Islam. This is about supporting the women who are fighting back, using whatever tools they have at their disposal. In the West, discussions about the religion in Muslim-majority countries are wont to decry Islam itself, but that has not been Noura’s wish, nor the wish of any of the activists on the campaign. In fact, Sudanese women ― domestically and in the diaspora ― have taken pains to articulate that forced marriage and sexual assault are prevalent in Sudanese society, but that culturally and based on Islam, these norms need to be shifted.
Noura’s campaign succeeded in raising awareness in part because it has been driven by Sudanese women who understand Sudanese culture. Recognizing that our challenges stem from the same original oppression ― gender inequality ― means that we must not speak on behalf of other women, but amplify and stand in solidarity with those who are already speaking.
The Guardian: Is taking down white men like Josh Denny always a victory for equality?
Humiliation, belittlement, dehumanisation: these are the tactics the oppressor uses. We need to be better than that.
This was originally published on The Guardian.
Those with the highest levels of privilege are often viscerally afraid of losing it. It’s the fear that if they relinquish power, the tables will turn on them, the terror that they will become the oppressed. This anxiety is not completely unfounded. If we’re honest, no one is above being corrupted or is immune to subjugating others, not even those who have been structurally oppressed for generations.
So, if you’re part of the fight for equality, as I am, how do we make sure that we’re working towards a world that would be good for all, rather than just the group we’re part of?
I was mulling over these questions following a Twitter exchange with the comedian Josh Denny. He said that the phrase “straight white male” was this century’s “N-word”. Many, including me, pointed out that this statement betrayed a lack of understanding of history and context. However, Denny seemed to understand the danger of being dehumanised, given the disastrous impacts of this process throughout history.
He argued: “We have to be better than that. Use our words and our minds and our hearts to win arguments. Not by trying to dehumanise the opposition to your beliefs. No matter who you are.”
It’s fairly obvious to those with an understanding of history and power structures that the term “straight white male” does not carry the same baggage as the N-word – or the same tragic outcomes over particular members of society. It is a false equivalence. However, despite his history of racist rhetoric, the root of Denny’s concern should not necessarily be dismissed. This is not about him really, but about the very real pushback to the many equality movements today, whether it’s #MeToo, diversity and inclusion efforts within companies, or any mention of quotas. Many like Denny – straight white men – feel the ground shifting beneath their feet and seem terrified of what is to come.
Yo, no. https://t.co/WHRk02gK2j
— Yassmin Abdel-Magied (@yassmin_a) May 19, 2018
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not in favour of prioritising the feelings of those straight white men, or about how we manage the discomfort that those in power are feeling. Not in the slightest. I am more than happy to call out the powerful, name prejudiced behaviour, highlight hypocrisies, and point out the structural inequalities that inform society. Acknowledgement is the first step towards change. However, as the ground shifts, we have a window of opportunity to shape the landscape of political discourse.
First, we must interrogate our intentions. I’ll be the first to admit, there is a certain satisfaction that comes from delivering the perfect Twitter takedown. Who doesn’t love the dopamine hits as the likes, re-tweets, and gifs of standing ovations flood in. It feels good to be right, and to have your community reward you for it. However, there is a discernible difference between naming bad behaviour with an intention to educate and calling things out with the aim – conscious or not – of humiliation.
Second, once those who benefit from the status quo have their power equalised, how will they be treated? Does the use of terms such as “straight white man”, “gammon” and “centrist dad” to humiliate or belittle indicate a level of dehumanisation, that could become dangerous once power shifts out of their hands?
Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator and theorist, explores these themes in his 1968 book, Pedagogia do Oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed). “The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors,” Freire observes. There is precedent for this reversal, and it could be argued that a shift where the oppressed and oppressors share power equally is much more historically unprecedented.
“The oppressed find in the oppressors their model of ‘manhood’,” the Brazilian theorist further posited. If this concept is extended to contemporary society, the implication is clear: those who are currently oppressed take their cues on how to exercise power from those holding the reins.
If we are to truly transform society, we must resist the temptation to lower ourselves to the methods of dehumanisation that have been used to exercise power and control. What does that actually mean? Well, we have to be better than those who currently hold power, finding ways to be generous and to be kind – even if it’s going to be hard work.
That’s the work of change. It’s about taking a breath before slamming the next Josh Denny on Twitter, and instead choosing to have an actual conversation. This isn’t about centring straight white men, because I don’t have time for that. This is about honouring ourselves and making sure we are building the best society for us all. It won’t be easy, but I truly believe it’ll be worth it.
Tyranny and Free Speech: Essay in The Saturday Paper
“The colliding of opinions will only lead to the emergence of truth if the force behind both is equal, if the playing field is level, if there is a commitment to truth rather than to an agenda that is self-serving.”
This was originally published in The Saturday Paper.
Call it mass cognitive dissonance. All around us, the loudest proponents of free speech, in politics and the Australian media, are in many ways the most flagrantly hypocritical. These actors set a dangerous precedent: by refusing to acknowledge their double standards, and by bullying and harassing those who disagree with their version of the truth, they become the very tyranny they claim to stand against. The hypocrisy is so blindingly obvious that it is almost comical to point it out. It is as if the mere act of highlighting something so clear diminishes the identifier, rather than the perpetrator.
Let’s zoom out for a moment and take the broader view. What is the point of free speech? A concept talked about so readily, debated so passionately and defended so feverishly, in many ways benefits from an ambiguity of purpose when discussed. Is it the pursuit of truth or the freedom to offend? Each ardent defender sees in the concept what they choose. Is one purpose more noble than another? Why is free speech shared so unequally? And why is it that freedom of expression seems to enjoy an elevated status above all other rights?
The concept of free speech is so deeply misused and misconstrued in our public discourse that a key fact is often obscured: freedom of speech in Australia is not explicitly protected. Arguably the only Western liberal democracy without a bill of rights, Australians have an implied freedom of political speech. There is very little protecting us from the consequences of “free speech”.
“The colliding of opinions will only lead to the emergence of truth if the force behind both is equal, if the playing field is level, if there is a commitment to truth rather than to an agenda that is self-serving.”
There is, of course, more than one way of policing a society. The Australian debate is conducted in the context of what is socially permitted and acceptable. It is policed by a concentrated media and a hyper-partisan political system.
I have been thinking a lot recently about free speech, and have been interested in what the English philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote about the danger of limiting expression and “the tyranny of the majority”. In his opinion, free speech is concerned with the pursuit of truth.
He wrote that “the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
The collision of a true proposition with an erroneous one, Mill argued, is how we get to truth, or the closest possible expression of it. Presenting a hypothesis and then having it tested by others without fear of reprisal is, arguably, how scientists strengthen their research, how engineers iterate a design or how chefs perfect their recipes. In the right environment, it is an undeniably effective method of convergence.
At the civil society end, Human Rights Watch’s definition seemingly squares with Mill’s. The international non-governmental organisation articulates freedom of speech as a bellwether, stating: “how any society tolerates those with minority, disfavoured, or even obnoxious views will often speak to its performance on human rights more generally”. What the organisation believes constitutes freedom is less defined; however, it is largely focused on government interference with citizens. This would align with Australia’s implied freedoms of political speech. But what about beyond that?
Typical proponents of free speech use Mill’s arguments to warn against their “silencing” – whether Lionel Shriver on cultural appropriation or Margaret Court on Christians being unable to speak against queer rights. Defenders of Shriver and Court might even use arguments based on Mill, announcing that we should always “err on the side of free speech”, and that “our right to speak our minds is under threat like never before”. Although useful, when Mill’s argument is used in today’s discourse, it is often stripped of context, applied in a peculiar vacuum and devoid of an understanding of history and power. The colliding of opinions will only lead to the emergence of truth if the force behind both is equal, if the playing field is level, if there is a commitment to truth rather than to an agenda that is self-serving. Herein lies the rub: those who claim to be the biggest proponents of free speech seem uninterested in the pursuit of truth, unable and unwilling to accept any version of truth that is not their own. The cognitive gymnastics that allows those who are the most powerful to persuade themselves and others they are being silenced is remarkable, and, in a perverted way, almost awe inspiring. To quote an unlikely ally in this, here is Janet Albrechtsen: “free speech has become a political smorgasbord where who you defend depends on partisan tastes rather than principles”.
Free speech is shaped and at times distorted by society’s informal but powerful mandates and norms, led and bolstered by actors in media, and reinforced by politicians, corporates and influencers online. This, in Mill’s writings, is “a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression … it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself”. This tyranny rears its head when the sacred cows of prevailing opinion are challenged and existing power structures are questioned: Anzac Day, Invasion Day, the rights of First Nations people, climate change. One does not need to look far for proof: the treatment of Adam Goodes, Tarneen Onus-Williams and Gillian Triggs are all examples of individuals targeted for expressions deemed by a powerful elite as “unacceptable”. Life for these figures, and anyone who chooses to speak outside socially acceptable norms, is made deeply uncomfortable through the use of overwhelming social pressure and the concentrated fury of a public shaming. Believe me: I know through personal experience. To paraphrase Guy Rundle, no one goes through being on the front page, day after day, as a hate figure and comes through unscathed. That is precisely what is intended.
The platforms arrayed by these interests are the very operation of the social tyranny that Mill warns against. On some issues, public sentiment has changed over time: marriage equality is a fine example of how the agenda of some media and conservative politicians was deeply out of step with the electorate. However, there are still some issues on which there is little empathy for an alternative perspective.
The danger here is twofold. First, Mill’s concern becomes prophetic: the tyranny of prevailing opinion limits us as a society from achieving our fullest potential and leads us to a place of political despotism. Less obviously dire, but perhaps more urgently, is that the way in which power is exercised in today’s public arena frightens those without traditional forms of power into actual self-imposed silence. The examples of Goodes, Triggs and even Julia Gillard are often used by marginalised voices to explain why they are afraid to speak out about issues that are important to them. Scores of young people contact me and share their concerns, stonewalled by their fears of voicing them too loudly, lest they attract the ire of media dragons lying in wait. “Look at what happened to you,” they whisper. “What chance do I have? I need to pay the rent.”
Is this a society that we believe is truly free? Is this the world that proponents of freedom of speech want to build? Because if their objective is “truth”, they are doing quite a poor job of securing it.
The other peculiarity in the furore around free speech is why it is that those who have access to the largest platforms feel so disproportionately injured by any questions around their ability to say as they please. The answer seems impossibly simple: they already have everything, but if they give up any of that space, if their opinions are questioned or even usurped by people who look and think differently to them, the systems of oppression on which their power is built could come crashing down. If you live emboldened by the power of patriarchy, racial supremacy, able-bodiedness and wealth, you have the power to glide effortlessly where you want. Even the whiff of a headwind, an opposing view, a dissenting perspective, seems personally offensive. This is why freedom of expression takes up so much space in our public discourse on rights, rather than freedom of movement, freedom from torture and inhuman treatment, the right to social security. These are rights and freedoms that are infringed upon on a daily basis by our very governments but are not met with nearly as much outrage by pundits in power. One wonders why.
GUEST APPEARANCE ON GUILTY FEMINIST PODCAST
I joined Deborah Frances-White and Susan Wokoma for an entertaining and impassioned edition of the fabulous podcast, The Guilty Feminist. Also a guest on the show was the inspiring co-founder of Legally Black UK, Liv Francis-Cornibert.
Check it out!
Riveting Reads: Wednesday 21st March, 2018
Interesting articles on issues ranging from a small town fighting for asylum seekers to stay, to Cambridge Analytica.
Back in the early 20-teens when I blogged a little more regularly, one of the things I most looked forward to was putting together the weekly 'LINKS, LINKS, LINKS' piece. It was a collection of links to articles and books that I had recently come across and found interesting, asking readers to join in on the discussion. These days, I tend to post most things on Facebook or Twitter, but I thought I might try bring my 'Riveting Reads' series back. Let me know if you think it's useful!
A heart warming story: “Bilo” – the little country town that is roaring in defence of asylum seekers
In central Queensland you can easily feel forgotten by and disconnected from the machinations of politicians in Canberra. But over the past week or so, the residents of Biloela have proved that the personal is indeed political. This is a town that looks out for its own.
Food for thought: How Identity Became A Weapon Against The Left
Any statement about what “black people” think or support automatically discounts the perspective of very large numbers of us, because—as is often said but rarely internalized—black people are not a monolith. Identity is, at best, a loose proxy for a person’s political commitments, and individual identity groups contain incredibly diverse perspectives. Failure to recognize that fact can result in dangerous consequences: it can lead us to support policies contrary to the best interests of a community simply because of optics, and it can turn us into a “firewall” to lean on, rather than a constituency to be won.
(YAM's comment) In short: the interest in Hillary as a woman candidate trumped interest in having the best candidate for women.
I'm always talking about this: How Amazon’s Bottomless Appetite Became Corporate America’s Nightmare
The company has grown so large and difficult to comprehend that it’s worth taking stock of why and how it’s left corporate America so thoroughly freaked out. Executives at the biggest U.S. companies mentioned Amazon thousands of times during investor calls last year, according to transcripts—more than President Trump and almost as often as taxes. Other companies become verbs because of their products: to Google or to Xerox. Amazon became a verb because of the damage it can inflict on other companies. To be Amazoned means to have your business crushed because the company got into your industry. And fear of being Amazoned has become such a defining feature of commerce, it’s easy to forget the phenomenon has arisen mostly in about three years.
There's been a lot of chat about data recently: Facebook, Big Data and You (audio) and this is a good explainer about Cambridge Analytica
Late on Friday, Facebook made an unexpected announcement: The data firm Cambridge Analytica, hyped as integral to President Trump’s election, was suspended from the social network for using data collected improperly from Facebook users.
It is a complicated issue that many people might have missed, given the timing of the announcement. With that in mind, here is an overview of the groups involved, what happened — and what it means.
But GDPR is on the case(ish): Europe's New Privacy Law Will Change the Web, and More
On May 25, however, the power balance will shift towards consumers, thanks to a European privacy law that restricts how personal data is collected and handled. The rule, called General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR, focuses on ensuring that users know, understand, and consent to the data collected about them. Under GDPR, pages of fine print won’t suffice. Neither will forcing users to click yes in order to sign up.
If you want to do something about it: Here’s how to check which apps have access to your Facebook account—and delete them
The EU is getting into the ethics in tech space: EC begins AI ethics push
SIGH: Extremism pays. That’s why Silicon Valley isn’t shutting it down
This doesn’t mean that YouTube’s owner (Google) is hell-bent on furthering extremism of all stripes. It isn’t. All it’s interested in is maximising advertising revenues. And underpinning the implicit logic of its recommender algorithms is evidence that people are drawn to content that is more extreme than what they started with – or perhaps to incendiary content in general.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-20/how-facebook-made-its-cambridge-analytica-data-crisis-even-worse?utm_campaign=Revue%20newsletter&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_source=The%20Interface