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Tehran, Iran - The redefinition of marriage deserves objective debate around the world. Every democracy must reinterpret laws to match local traditions and current social codes. Referendums may decide this issue finally.
Tehran, Iran - Iranian papers are busy debating the economy. And there is a lot to discuss: a very high rate of real growth (at more than 5% over the last year). We are debating what to do about creating even more value-added activity. All of this takes place within a structural shift of the economy toward increasing liberalization.
This question is as old as the world’s most ancient profession. Around 70 A.D. the Roman army burst into Jerusalem, swinging the Temple of Jerusalem into an orgy of destruction. So what does Rome have to do with Jerusalem?
Rome was a world power with its genius for conquest and distant administration. Jerusalem was a spiritual and cultural center of a small state (sometimes two) with no aspiration to bend other lands to its will.
Roman sexual morality and family law were remarkably liberal and pragmatic. Law and custom entrenched the privileges of aristocrats: free men over slaves, and men over women.
In Jerusalem, Jewish law had its roots in Abrahamic spirituality. It was far more autocratic and conservative in its attitude to sexual mores, believing the highest source of legislation was divinely ordained.
The debate between these views carried forward for more than 2000 years. Societies continue to struggle with the issue -- how liberal to be. Prostitution has created a wide spectrum of rules and laws around the world.
On the one hand, t is punishable by death in some Muslim countries. In those countries, usually with great deference to their tribal traditions, the debate over whether to legalize prostitution has no space to develop.
In other countries, prostitution is a legitimate business activity with unionized industry workers. A UN convention was adopted in 1949 and 89 countries signed up to declare that forced prostitution was incompatible with human dignity. The United States, Germany and The Netherlands did not join the convention. In some countries, it is treated as a fact of life. Governments provide heath checks and social services for taxpaying prostitutes.
Even in traditional societies like Iran and India, however, social taboos are gradually being relaxed. It is not unusual to see an investigation of underground sexual activity or stories of “temporary marriages” in an Iranian newspaper or a serialized television program. Unlike 20 years ago, Indian movies also engage sex more liberally in their movies.
This is due in part to great communication across country borders, and exposure of these societies to suggestive, sexual behaviour in Western advertising and pop culture.
American pop culture, like Rome in bygone years, has practically conquered the world. But the message is not entirely clear. Does American society tends to be more liberal, like Romans, or does it fall back on strict codes of religious values of 2000 years ago?
Prostitution exists in just about every society. More tolerant societies tend to look beyond the matter to deal with more modern topics. Zealots that are stuck on the past make a big issue out of an ancient practice.
After 2000 years, the children of Abraham have not been able to reconcile their differences as they stick to their perceived revelations. So this debate, among others, will continue.
The question for the panel relies on a report prepared by an all female “Task Force” of the American Psychological Association. It is a forceful report, attempting to set up a causal relationship between media aggressor and receiving victim.
This opening of old wounds is a desperate attempt to polarize and rally around differences. It is simply a bad idea -- be it honoring Salman Rushdie or promoting the violent ideas of Osama bin Laden. Both are misguided efforts rooted in an aimless desire for more violence.
It is the season to be thankful for what we have and I am always grateful. Of course, I can always be ungrateful and come up with a surging list of challenges, repackaged as a wish list about politics, the environment, finance, culture, entertainment and a ton of other lofty goals. Or perhaps I could whine about wars, terror, or implosion of countries supported by shaky foundations. However, I am a realist and a conservative and, like most people in the Middle East have been trained from childhood, I am thankful for what I have even as I always hope for a better tomorrow. A surge, in logic and goodwill, will be most welcome.
“Goodwill begets goodwill” were the words of the 41st president of the United States, George H.W. Bush, in his keynote inauguration speech about the New World Order after communism. It might be useful to reflect upon the past nineteen years with those words in mind and consider how we all managed to squander so many chances for real peace and tranquility. Is it really a good idea to replace diplomacy with trash talk and cheap labels borrowed from Europe’s days between the two world wars?
In this part of the world, people wish for common courtesy and the essence of civility. Admittedly, at times, emotions and frustration tend to overtake the region’s ability to maintain a cool head and a calm posture. However, the desires and wishes of people in this part of the world are no different from Main Street, USA: an enigmatic desire for equitable peace, fairness in a quest for justice, and an insistence on preserving one’s dignity and mutual respect. The rest will fall into place and cool-headed exchanges around a table will follow. Who knows, commerce and good humor might even follow and the material side of life might improve in due course! Shopping is a surge in human rights these days!
Tribal behavior and violent conduct are inseparable parts of human psyche. They are hardly local problems in Kenya.
I am inspired by today’s edition of The Washington Post and its story about lobotomy. Lobbyotomists are essentially the same kind of practitioners as modern day lobotomists. They endeavor to work the brains of politicians and the general public to dispense policy or spread rumors. They tend to think that they have succeeded if leaders quip a one-liner or “rules” on the lives of a large number of people.
Lobbyotomists often drill in the minds of politicians, if only to mine their gray matter and divert them to absurd steps or undignified comments. It is only World War Three, so what’s the big deal?
The Current Discussion: For Valentine’s Day, this question: What is the future of love?
I was perplexed with this question, as my crystal ball is in the repair shop for a software upgrade. So I Googled the L-word--what else is there to do these days? Out poured more than 2 billion “hits,” and then it hit me.....there are probably as many definitions for love as there are people on this planet. Be it the universal love of parents and children, or stories, commandments, poems and odes in all languages, songs, acts, customs, edicts and deeds going back to the beginning of time. Even the early Mr. Caveman had to hunt a wild animal and make a fur coat for Mrs. Caveman, if only to keep alive the commercial spirit of Valentine’s Day!
With this development, I went back to the old reliable standard and Googled “life,” to find a bond between life and love. Disappointingly, the top item on this search result was about a NBC TV cop show series and a life prison term for a crime not committed. (Amazing how politics reflect performance arts and television shows!)
The Current Discussion: All four Oscars for best acting went to non-Americans. Is Hollywood's cultural hegemony finally breaking up? Or are we Hollywoodizing foreign talents like Javier Bardem and Marion Cotillard?
It is easy to elevate the importance of Hollywood to fictional heights and then reach a positive, but superficial, answer to both questions, and then shrug it all off by saying, Who cares? The question carries a presumption of an American monopoly over the art of cinema, although India is the top producer of films. The annual awards ceremony of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is essentially a domestic affair and a celebration in America’s production centre of its top export.
The Current Discussion: France has rejected a citizenship application from a burqa-wearing Moroccan woman on the grounds that she has "insufficiently assimilated" to French culture. Should cultural assimilation be a requirement for citizenship?
This is indeed an eye-opener, but not a shock. For the last eight years, we have seen cropped versions of human rights laced with knee-jerk reactions of governments. It is an intriguing contrast of human rights stacked against predisposition of governments to cast aside constitutions, cool-headed interpretations of constitutions and rule by imperial decrees. This particular case is a leap beyond the logic that separates the church from the state, especially in one of the EU melting pot countries.
The Current Discussion: A London publishing house was firebombed for agreeing to publish 'The Jewel of Medina', a controversial novel about Muhammad's wife, which Random House dropped earlier this year because it feared terrorist threats. In hindsight, was Random House in the right? Does this justify censorship of this kind in the future?
Censorship can be interpreted in different ways, be it state-enforced censorship or selective and voluntary restraint. But I fail to see censorship in this matter. Random House, a large publisher with vast international business, has made a business decision to drop publishing a controversial novel, perhaps one out of tens of thousands proposals that it receives in due course of business (The web site of Random House lists 10,000 books available on line for a brief browsing or purchase). Alternatively, a competitor picked up the business. This is hardly a case for a gripping thriller of writer’s suppression.
The Current Discussion: Today is "Genocide Remembrance Day "in the Armenian community, a particularly strained time of year for Turkey and Armenia. What's a realistic first step forward toward reconciliation for each of these countries?
Bad blood has always been part of human history, in folk stories or epic tales with two sides to an event repeated in, say, ancient Greece and their Trojan Wars. However, Greek society eventually graduated towards philosophy and rationalism to search for roots and causes of tales, myths, reality and behavior. About 12-13 years ago, the Turkish Republic emulated this historical graduation towards a search for rationalism and a rethink of its relations with Greece, albeit out of necessity to appease Greece during its (now aimless) EU candidacy talks. Those talks closed the book on differences and abrasion during the days of the Ottoman rulers. And it might now be time for Turkey to duplicate that realization for Armenia, and work towards yet another duplication of Entente cordiale and a change of heart about events that happened prior to the birth of the Turkish Republic.
Concurrently, Armenia must fast-forward to the 21st century, where all Armenians must understand that the history of the region is dotted with violence and atrocities: the invasion of Persia by Turkic or Arabs, Crimean Wars, The Russian Civil Wars, and two World Wars. All conflicts eventually end, and Europeans have managed to set aside the seas of blood between them and converge their common values into a framework of co-existence. History proves that insisting upon a certain version of tales told eventually fades away.
To this regional observer, however, the genocide issue seems to be a mere frame and a probable starter for Armenian émigrés from Anatolia to revisit their more contemporary sufferings in living memory and the losses that they experienced during the Turkish civil war in 1960s and 1970s. This is likely to be the hidden agenda of an eventual a la Turca mock-up of an Entente cordiale.
And what can Mr. Obama, the hyper-advertised Zeus but really a beleaguered Messiah, do about an age-old conflict in far and away places as part of his charm offensive in Islamic lands? Precious little in all probabilities, for the true and fundamental reason that such steps do not yield votes in Kansas for an American politician. Thus it might be best left to the locals to let them solve their problems and let Europeans nudge the sides towards a discussion table and a forum to chew the fat.
As the world has observed in Palestine and the Arab-Zionist conflict, the Pakistani Picnic, the Darfur case, the Bosnia stalemate, the Rwandan carnage or the Cambodian cull, the Washington spin on the issue tends to trump facts as the hype rises to headlines and skewed interpretations via lobbies and spin meisters transform it all to a Friday night high school football skirmish, away from reality and truth. Hence, the American president might be well advised to skirt Herculean motions and shallow multi-tasking endeavors, especially where it deals with history far from the attention span of the electorate.
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