Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Comment on Mona Eltahawy's polemic (linked to below) on the treatment of women in the Arab world. Yes, the problems are real but they need putting in a wider context where wholesale reform is needed. It's not just about gender
A call to arms. "Arab societies hate women. Name me an Arab country, and I'll recite a litany of abuses fueled by a toxic mix of culture and religion that few seem willing or able to disentangle lest they blaspheme or offend"
"After months of mysterious pain and heavy bleeding after the birth, she had an ultrasound and discovered that her uterus had been removed. 'They just said to me, 'What do you need more children for? You already have two'"
Remarkable essay on disturbing history and politics of the "population control movement", from US to China. Pseudoscience of Malthus led to billions of ruined lives globally. The lesson? Side with human ingenuity, not antihumanism
The story of Houshang Bouzari, once a well-connected Iranian businessman. But his involvement in a lucrative project attracted the attention of the Rafsanjanis, with most unpleasant results. A grim insight into clerical rule
It was not until 2007 that owning another person became a criminal offence in Mauritania. Even now an estimated 20% of the population are in "real slavery". Here is an astonishing, at times upsetting, report from the African state
Shin In Geun is probably the only person to have been born in, and escape from, a North Korean camp for political prisoners. His account of the cruelty and viciousness of life inside Camp 14 is harrowing almost beyond belief
If you buy fish from Costco or Wholefoods, here's how some of it allegedly gets there. Indonesians used as bonded labour on South Korean ships in Pacific waters. Beatings, kickings, rape, 16-hour shifts. Take-home pay: $1 an hour
A European crisis? Perhaps—when you consider debates around minorities and migrants, state infringements on civil liberties in name of anti-terrorism, rise of popular extremist parties, waning influence of human rights institutions
Horrifying, important account of corruption and lack of humanity in Iraq. "You pay $300,000 to buy a post as a security chief of a neighbourhood for a year and you have to get your money back. It's like an investment"
Interesting commentary on US Marines scandal. Does dehumanising the dead help soldiers cope psychologically with their act of killing? And how do you explain that it's ok to waterboard a live enemy but not urinate on a dead one?
Ten years on it's still open, despite President Obama's promise to shut it. Dozens of people associated with Guantánamo—lawyers, soldiers, diplomats, former detainees—tell the story of the US detention centre, in their own words
Image from Wikimedia Commons
"It doesn't simulate the feeling of drowning. You are being drowned, slowly"
