Radical islam part 1

Maybe you’ve heard a thing or two about Mali in the news recently. If not, here is a little bit about it to get you up to speed. Mali used to be a centre of African culture with a booming tourist trade and a tradition of great musicians. Unfortunately, since the 16th of January 2012, there has been a change in this great country. Islamist military groups extended their ever growing reach into this African nation and seized control of the northern portion of the country. The cities of Gao and Timbuktu were occupied in this insurgent push.

Jihadis held the whole north before France came in

So eventually the Malian government asked for help, and France came to the rescue. They quickly pushed back Jihad in the North, but now they are engaged in an Afghanistan style war with a hidden enemy that uses child soldiers and suicide bombers to their advantage.

Now, I’m sure someone out there is thinking, “Well why can’t we just let a country do what it wants? Why do western nations always stick their nose into the business of other countries?”. Well if you take this viewpoint then please, tell me why. In my opinion the answer to this question is clear. Violent religious fundamentalists have absolutely no right to overthrow a vulnerable secular state and replace it with a cruel Islamic code of conduct known as Sharia Law

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The islamists in northern Mali were implementing a strict form of Sharia Law. In doing so, they effectively banned alcohol, cigarettes, music, dancing, socialization, and books that are not the Quran. This form of theocratic government is the first step on the long road backwards for the rights of women, secular government, freedom of the individual, and quality of life in Mali. In the North, there were reports of inhumane applications of sharia law, such as amputation of fingers or hands as a punishment for theft.

I have to respect France for being the country to step up to the plate and help stop this menace. Even if all they manage to do is get engaged in a long bloody war, they proved that the western world would still respect democracy over theocracy. Theft should not result in amputation of the hand. Adultery should not result in public flogging. Leaving Islam is no justification for capital punishment. 

Picture from Gao

Though Mali and France seem like they’re so far and distant from us, the idea of Sharia Law is closer than you think. In Britain, Sharia is seen as a parallel legal system. Even here in Ontario, Muslim organizations attempted to get the provincial government to allow Sharia law as a parallel legal system. Luckily for us, then-Premier Dalton McGuinty answered their calls in no uncertain terms…

“There will be no sharia law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians.”

Experiments of evil

Israel Keyes killed 8-12 people brutally... looks like a nice guy

      If you could tell who was good and who was bad, this world would be a far easier place. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. Evil doesn’t come with a warning label. An evil person cannot be recognized by mere appearance. Maybe it could even be said that many acts we consider evil are not executed by people who are evil whatsoever. I think the answer is more complicated than just having The Devil on your shoulder.

Marilyn Manson looks super evil... Actually he's a pretty solid guy

      Many famous experiments have changed the entire way we think about evil. One occurred at Yale in 1964 and is known as The Milgram experiment. It measured the willingness of subjects to preform evil acts on an innocent person when an authority figure told them to. 

      This experiment required separating the teacher (a volunteer) and the learner (who was a paid actor) by putting them in different rooms, but still allowing them to communicate. Then the teacher then made the learner recite and remember word pairs. With each incorrect answer given, the teacher was instructed to give the learner an electric shock that increased with power for each wrong answer. The experiment was ended after the maximum 450 volt shock was administered three times, or if the teacher refused to continue after receiving these four prompts from the experimenter.

Please continue

The experiment requires that you continue

It is absolutely essential that you continue

You have no other choice, you must go on

This is how the experiment worked

      So how many administered the excruciating 450 volt shock three times to max out the experiment and end it? Five percent? Maybe ten percent? Or even as high as twenty-five percent of participants? No, a staggering 61-65% of participants administered what they believed to be the maximum shock on their innocent peer three times. These numbers barely changed, even when the experiment was moved from Yale’s respectable campus to a back room of an office building in an inner city.

      Now, what can this experiment tell us about the nature of evil? It seems to point to a truth that is sickening but entirely logical. Almost every one of us has the ability to become the inflicter of pain and torment on another human. It seems that the perceived good or evil in a person has much more to do with that person’s situation than their personal morality. 

I'll spare you the graphic pictures,
this one says it all

      It is this thought that makes heinous acts like genocide all the more terrifying; the people committing them are not all horrible twisted psychopaths. Maybe some are just cogs in a larger psychopathic machine. This means that all that would be required to get large numbers of normal people to commit abhorrent crimes against humanity would be a few horrible people in power with the intelligence and charisma to create the system. This makes a lot of sense when you think of the holocaust. I'm sure many other genocides also fall into this pattern.

      So tell me, how does this banality of evil apply in our world? From brutal dictators, to religious extremists, to soldiers who carry out war crimes; they can all be seen as evil. Is there a way to stop this, or is it simply a part of human nature? 

      I hope that through more experiments and advances in science, we will be able to one day understand and eradicate the evil in the world.

Rehteah part 2

The Halifax police have re opened the Rehteah Parsons case in the wake of her death citing “new and credible information”. Anonymous, the hacktivist group launched a campaign after her death that they named #OpJusticeforRehteah. They claim to have identified the four boys who took and sent the picture and have given that information to the police. The Canadian police, however, made sure to say that the additional information “did not come from an online source.”

Protesters holding vigil for Rehteah

Though it comes too late in this incredibly sad story of both human and government failure, Nova Scotia Justice Minister Ross Landry is seeking to change Canadian law and try to find a silver lining in this very dark cloud. If passed, this law would make it illegal to circulate pictures of a sexual nature without consent. Though what happened to Rehteah occurred at age 15, the proposed law would address this long standing problem for people of all ages, not just minors.

As young people in a digital world, we can see the effects that this law will have if it is passed. I’m sure every one of us knows someone, or has even heard rumours about someone, who had sexual pictures of them sent around. It’s tragic that, in our hyper-connected environment, people at their most vulnerable are being used as a source of comedy and ridicule all because of one bad decision. 

I hope that making distribution of those kind of pictures without consent a federal crime will stop teens from trading naked pictures of others like baseball cards. It’s a damn shame that an act as easy to trace as sending a picture between cellphones is not tracked by the police. It’s a bigger shame that the legal loophole with regards to sexual cyber bullying was so extreme that it took repeated suicides to motivate the country into action. 

     I hope another girl doesn’t have to die for this. 

     I hope we learn our lesson.

Is a hacktivist really an activist?

      Before the glory days of the internet, an activist was standing on the street with a sign. Maybe on a soapbox making a speech. Activists in large numbers would break laws, or even resort to such bold moves as standing in front of tanks. Civil disobedience was the workhorse of social change for most of the 20th century. But it’s a new era now. This is the century of the internet and a new form of activism has rapidly grown there too.

      They call themselves Hacktivists. You may have heard of Anonymous, but they are not the only group. Through image boards like 4chan and 711chan many communities started, merged, and split over the subject of online activism.

      Anonymous is probably the most influential and powerful, so for this post I’ll mainly focus on them. The iconic images of the Guy Fawkes mask and the suit without a head have become synonyms for Anonymous. They’ve shut down government websites around the world, discovered the tormentors of Amanda Todd and Rehteah Parsons, and led the way on many issues of social justice and liberty. 

      Anonymous was a large backer of the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement, and had a considerable role in ensuring that the protests remained peaceful. They work to undermine such organizations as the Westboro Baptist Church and the Church of Scientology have a difficult time. They even went after the North Korean Government. These guys have balls, and the skills to pull it all off. Anonymous is an organization by the people and for the people, the supporters of the 99%. They don’t forgive, forget, or even back down.

      Unfortunately, there is also a darker side to the hacktivism of Anonymous. Extreme decentralization weakens the group's potency. The organization without any leaders has no ability to plan strategically and maximize their resources to further their goals of a free internet. It has even been speculated that some of their actions could diminish the freedom of the internet instead of defending it.

      

      They attacked the Chinese government. They attacked on cyber-security companies that were lobbying for internet regulations. They shut down the sites of big music companies and many US government sites in response to them closing file sharing sites. They even shut down sites that run other sites, immobilizing thousands of blogs and businesses in one fell swoop. This strain of activity could be roughly compared to shooting a bazooka into the middle of a vote on gun control. By cyber-attacking anyone who tried to control the internet, they could be further increasing the fear of an unregulated “wild west” internet.

      So what’s your take on these hacktivists? Is shutting down websites and wearing a Guy Fawkes mask really activism? Are they the voice of the oppressed in the twenty-first century, or are they simply sowing the seeds for their own destruction by poking the hornet's nest?

Embryonic Ethics

      Embryonic stem cells are possibly the most exciting development in the field of medicine. Some people see them as ethical nightmares, some people see them as the start of a medical revolution and the cure for many diseases. However, almost everyone would have to accept that they hold a massive potential for changing the way we approach illness and injury.

      So let’s back up, and talk about what they are. Embryonic stem cells are cells that can change into other cells and self regenerate. Through repetition of that process, a single totipotent (able to become all cell types) cell becomes an organism as complex as you and I. Not all stem cells are totipotent though. As the organism becomes more developed, the stem cells begin to specialize into different specialized stem cells, and finally into the myriad of different cells types that make up life.

      Hypothetically, these cells could be used to create any part of the body. Many diseases, disabilities, and injuries could be cured by this breakthrough in medical science. Unfortunately it’s never that simple. Many different groups are raising ethical issues with the source of the stem cells required for research.

      According to a list of stem cell opponents presented by Rep. Jeb Hensnarling, (R-TX), thirteen of the seventeen opponent groups are conservative religious lobbying organizations. The remaining three are primarily anti-abortion groups. Their problems stem (pardon the pun) from the fact that the embryo has to be de constructed to access the stem cells inside.

      So what side do you take on the ethical front? Is this the murder of unborn infants, or is it a promising new field of science? Keep in mind there are many different types of research being done and we are still not at the point of perfect cures. On the other hand if we unlock the secrets of our creation as organisms, it could hold the keys to eradicating many of the diseases and issues that plague us today.

Rehtaeh Parsons

Rehtaeh

        Her name is Rehtaeh Parsons, and she died after being taken off life support Sunday, April 7. Her death was the result of a suicide attempt that was ultimately successful. The vile circumstances that led to this poor girl’s death should serve as a wakeup call to all Canadians out there. Online bullying and slut shaming have reached scary new heights in our society. We must take action to ensure that the sick and twisted chain of events that cut short the life of Rehtaeh Parsons never happen again.

She loved all of her many pets

          One night in November 2011, Rehtaeh and a friend went to another friends’s house and had a bit to drink.There were four other boys there, and at some point during the night her friend left. She was only 15 years old when she was raped by the four boys. During the rape, one of the boys took a picture and decided that it would be funny to circulate it online. Though she was drunk and barely remembered the incident the next morning, no one would ever let her forget it. No one believed that it was a rape. Everyone just thought she was a slut. Her old friends abandoned her, and she moved away to Halifax to seek escape. The bullying continued, and she fell into depression. The shaming had become so extreme that Rehtaeh was admitted to hospital and on suicide watch for 6 weeks. Eventually she managed to move home and was able to start fighting the depression. She tried to hold her head up high, and tried to simply forget about what happened. 

           She attempted to prosecute the boys who did this to her. She went to the police, they did nothing for her. They said there was no case. They did not even interview the boys until the end of the investigation. No child pornography charges. No rape charges. No bullying charges. Nothing. 

Rehtaeh and her father just chillin

           Rehtaeh died from suicide April 7th at 11:15 PM. She was 17 years old.

           Rehteah’s father wrote a beautiful but heart breaking piece about her. The full article which I very strongly suggest you read and share virally is available by clicking the excerpt.

“I had to write something about this. I don’t want her life to defined by a Google search about suicide or death or rape. I want it to be about the giving heart she had. Her smile. Her love of life and the beautiful way in which she lived it.  The family I found out this afternoon my daughter saved the life of a young woman with her heart. How fitting. She also gave someone a new liver, a kidney, a new breath, and a new chance to love. She saved the lives of four people with her final gift of life. She was that wonderful. Someone out there is going to look at the world with my daughter’s eyes. The most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.”

         The piece written by her father and interview with her mother almost brought me to tears. There is a strength and nobility in the way her parents are dealing with the death of their precious daughter. There are no calls for revenge, or vigilante justice. Just some good, honest people trying to do the best they can after losing the one they loved the most in this world.

        I guess the rest of it falls on us, the teenagers of today. It’s our job now never to tolerate another instance of a young woman being bullied and abused. Alcohol is not consent. Rape makes rapists out of the perpetrators, not sluts out of the victims. Let this tragedy be a turning point that forever changes how we view those victims.

Dying From the Inside Out

     As I mentioned in an earlier post, a close friend recently let me know that she has been struggling with an eating disorder. Again, I am moved to voice my opposition to our culture that worships impossible proportions for women, and then makes them feel ugly or inferior for not being able to conform.

     It has been estimated that by the age of 17, a girl will have seen 250,000 commercial media messages. The vast majority of these messages perpetrate the myth of the impossibly slender ideal. According to Statistics Canada, “prevalence of the most common eating disorders is 0.3-1% for anorexia nervosa and perhaps three times that for bulimia nervosa”. I am left wondering if the reason these disorders are affecting such a large portion of young people has any correlation to the massive number of advertisements they are bombarded with daily.

     That’s why I was thrilled when I heard that a Swedish store named Åhléns has been sending ripples through the world with a picture taken at one of its stores. The picture is of a mannequin with far more realistic proportions than the traditional stick thin ideal of female advertising. One leader on this is Dove, but to hear about more businesses adopting this brightens my day.

     From the barbie dolls at young ages to magazines and celebrities later, this image of the “perfect” woman has to stop. Every woman is perfect to some, and vile to others. You can’t judge a person by what the mirror and measuring tape tell you. Like everything else, women are subjective and trying to objectify them is causing great harm to the girls among us who chase perfection.

     I hope this new mannequin and the massive positive reaction to it signifies a change for the future. Too many girls have been made slaves to the scale; sticks are not sexy.

     If anyone reading this thinks, “That’s me,” then I have a message just for you.

Relax, you’re beautiful exactly how you are.