6 Things You Need To Know About The Humanitarian Tragedy In CAR

On 20 January, senior representatives from the UN, governments and NGOs met in Brussels to take action on the humanitarian crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR).

Here are six things you need to know about a situation that has been called a “mega crisis”:

1. The crisis is incredibly severe, but it isn’t new. CAR is one of the poorest countries in the world. It ranks 179th out of 187 countries, and has been embroiled in a decades-long series of armed conflicts. It was already labelled a “development disaster” when, in December 2012, rebel forces in the north began to march on the capital, Bangui. These rebels, who came to be known as Séléka (coalition in the local Sango language) overthrew the government in March 2013.

In the months that followed, insecurity and violence continued almost unabated, affecting all of the country’s 4.6 million people. There was a gradual and inexorable breakdown of law and order, as well as the total collapse of administration and basic services throughout the country. The crisis reached a head in the final months of 2013 when outbreaks of fighting between ex-Séléka elements and so-called Anti-Balaka civil defence groups led to arbitrary killings and looting, culminating in clashes in Bangui on 5 December and the resignation of the country’s interim President, Michel Djotodia.

2. More than half the population of CAR is now in need of humanitarian assistance . An estimated 2.5 million people – well over half of the country’s 4.6 million residents – are in need of humanitarian assistance. One in five people have fled their home. Just over 900,000 Central Africans are now living in 115 makeshift sites and host communities dotted across the country, including 500,000 people displaced in the month following the 5 December clashes. Almost 250,000 Central African refugees live in neighbouring countries.

3. All schools in the country have been closed since December 2013. More than 60 per cent of schools in Bangui are housing people displaced by the fighting. According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), about 2.5 million children have been affected by the fighting. Many have been forced to join armed groups and exposed to sexual violence.

“Recent months have been a time of horrific violence, suffering and fear for children in the Central African Republic,” said UNICEF’s Executive Director Anthony Lake who visited CAR this month. “They have suffered death and injury and have witnessed terrible things that no child should ever see, much less endure. Too many have been displaced from their homes, separated from their families and recruited by armed groups.”

4. An estimated 90 per cent of people are eating just one meal a day as a result of persistent insecurity and the collapse of local markets. The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that it is running out of food for the growing number of displaced people in the country.

The agency reported that 38 of its trucks laden with rice were stuck at the Cameroon border with the drivers refusing to cross due to the threat of attacks. "Suspending food distributions could lead to further tension, particularly among the 100,000 displaced people in the overcrowded Bangui airport camp," WFP warned.

5. The UN and its humanitarian partners are scaling up their presence across CAR despite very real security concerns and access constraints. Aid workers face enormous challenges in delivering assistance to people in need consistently.

“Security and protection of civilians and aid workers raise serious concerns. We call on all parties to allow humanitarian organizations to operate unhindered,” said UN Humanitarian Chief Valerie Amos and EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, Kristalina Georgieva in ajoint statement.

6. Pleas for funding are finally being heeded. Despite the chronic needs of Central African communities, aid agencies in CAR have lacked funding to reach all those in need. However, at the Brussels High-Level Meeting, the EU and Member States pledged US$496 million, including just over $200 million for humanitarian assistance. In all, aid agencies estimate that they will need $550 million for 2014.

“Our thanks to our donors […] who have pledged to give so generously,” said USG Amos at the end of the meeting.

On the same day the European Union also announced a plan to send troops to CAR in an effort to bolster security. There are already about 4,500 African Union troops and 1,600 French troops.

“The key thing that came out [of the meeting] was the importance of linking our humanitarian work to a broader stabilization agenda and indeed to the reconciliation efforts which are going on throughout the Central African Republic,” said Ms. Amos.

*http://www.unocha.org/top-stories/all-stories/car-6-things-you-need-know-about-humanitarian-tragedy-central-africa

This Isn't 'Feminism'. It's Islamophobia

As a person who writes about women's issues, I am constantly being told that Islam is the greatest threat to gender equality in this or any other country – mostly by white men, who always know best. This has been an extraordinary year for feminism, but from the Rochdale grooming case to interminable debates over whether traditional Islamic dress is "empowering" or otherwise, the rhetoric and language of feminism has been co-opted by Islamophobes, who could not care less about women of any creed or colour.

The recent blanket coverage of the "gender segregation on campus" story was a textbook case. This month Student Rights, a pressure group not run by students, released a report vastly exaggerating a suggestion by Universities UK that male and female students might be asked to sit separately in some lectures led by Islamic guest speakers. Many Asian women's groups and individual Muslim feminists joined the subsequent protests, sometimes taking personal risks to do so. Unfortunately, rightwing commentators and tabloids seized upon the issue to imply that Islamic extremists are taking over the British academy.

Never mind that it wasn't strictly true, the non-controversy spread to every level of government. Labour MP Chuka Umunna declared: "A future Labour government would not allow or tolerate segregation in our universities." Even the prime minister stepped into the debate, saying the proposed guidelines, which have since been withdrawn, were "not the right approach". The elite all-male Oxford club of which both he and the chancellor were members was presumably the perfect approach.

I have spent weary weeks being asked to condemn this "policy of gender segregation" by "Islamic extremists", despite the fact that no such policy exists. Of course, I condemn all sexism within the academy. I condemn segregated drinking societies and the under-representation of women at the top levels of academia. I condemn rape culture on campus, traditions like "seal clubbing" and "slut dropping" where male students are encouraged to sexually humiliate their female classmates. If I've enough breath left, I'll condemn the suggestion that guest lecturers be allowed a segregated audience for religious reasons.

Structural sexism does take place every day in our universities, as it does in our offices, shops and homes – and we should oppose it everywhere. But demanding that feminists of every race and faith drop all our campaigns and stand against "radical Islam" sounds more and more like white patriarchy trying to make excuses for itself: "If you think we're bad, just look at these guys."

It's the dishonesty that angers me most. It's the hypocrisy of men claiming to stand for women's rights while appropriating our language of liberation to serve their own small-minded agenda. Far-right groups like the English Defence League and the British National party rush to condemn crimes against women committed by Muslim men, while fielding candidates who make claims like "women are like gongs – they need to be struck regularly".

Some of their members tell me that since they are standing against the sexism of Muslim barbarians, as a feminist I should be on their side. When I disagree, I am invariably informed I deserve be shipped to Afghanistan and stoned to death.

Horror stories about Muslim misogyny have long been used by western patriarchs to justify imperialism abroad and sexism at home. The Guardian's Katharine Viner reminds us about Lord Cromer, the British consul general in Egypt from 1883. Cromer believed the Egyptians were morally and culturally inferior in their treatment of women and that they should be "persuaded or forced" to become "civilised" by disposing of the veil.

"And what did this forward-thinking, feminist-sounding veil-burner do when he got home to Britain?" asks Viner. "He founded and presided over the Men's League for Opposing Women's Suffrage, which tried, by any means possible, to stop women getting the vote. Colonial patriarchs like Cromer … wanted merely to replace eastern misogyny with western misogyny." More than a century later, the same logic is used to imply that misogyny only matters when it isn't being done by white men.

I am not writing here on behalf of Muslim women, who can and do speak for themselves, and not all in one voice. I am writing this as a white feminist infuriated by white men using dog-whistle Islamophobia to derail any discussion of structural sexism; as someone who has heard too many reactionaries tell me to shut up about rape culture and the pay gap and just be grateful I'm not in Saudi Arabia; as someone angered that so many Muslim feminists fighting for gender justice are forced to watch their truth, to paraphrase that fusty old racist Rudyard Kipling, "twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools".

We are the fools, if we believe that accepting aggressive distinctions between nice, safe western sexism and scary, heathen Muslim sexism is going to serve the interests of women. The people making these arguments don't care about women. They care about stoking controversy, attacking Muslims and shouting down feminists of all stripes.

For decades, western men have hijacked the language of women's liberation to justify their Islamophobia. If we care about the future of feminism, we cannot let them set the agenda.

• *Laurie Penny, The Guardian, Sunday 22 December 2013

**This article was amended to draw attention to the fact that many Muslim and Asian women were involved in the "gender segregation" protests

***http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/22/this-isnt-feminism-its-islamophobia

For Egypt on the 3rd anniversary of their uprisings!

Uruguay's President José Mujica: No Palace, No Motorcade, No Frills...

If anyone could claim to be leading by example in an age of austerity, it is José Mujica, Uruguay's president, who has forsworn a state palace in favour of a farmhouse, donates the vast bulk of his salary to social projects, flies economy class and drives an old Volkswagen Beetle.

But the former guerrilla fighter is clearly disgruntled by those who tag him "the world's poorest president" and – much as he would like others to adopt a more sober lifestyle – the 78-year-old has been in politics long enough to recognise the folly of claiming to be a model for anyone.

"If I asked people to live as I live, they would kill me," Mujica said during an interview in his small but cosy one-bedroom home set amid chrysanthemum fields outside Montevideo.

The president is a former member of the Tupamaros guerrilla group, which was notorious in the early 1970s for bank robberies, kidnappings and distributing stolen food and money among the poor. He was shot by police six times and spent 14 years in a military prison, much of it in dungeon-like conditions.

Since becoming leader of Uruguay in 2010, however, he has won plaudits worldwide for living within his means, decrying excessive consumption and pushing ahead with policies on same-sex marriage, abortion and cannabis legalisation that have reaffirmed Uruguay as the most socially liberal country in Latin America.

Praise has rolled in from all sides of the political spectrum. Mujica may be the only leftwing leader on the planet to win the favour of the Daily Mail, which lauded him as a trustworthy and charismatic figurehead in an article headlined: "Finally, A politician who DOESN'T fiddle his expenses."

But the man who is best known as Pepe says those who consider him poor fail to understand the meaning of wealth. "I'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live," he said. "My lifestyle is a consequence of my wounds. I'm the son of my history. There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress."

He shares the home with his wife, Lucía Topolansky, a leading member of Congress who has also served as acting president.

As I near the home of Uruguay's first couple, the only security detail is two guards parked on the approach road, and Mujica's three-legged dog, Manuela.

Mujica cuts an impressively unpolished figure. Wearing lived-in clothes and well-used footwear, the bushy-browed farmer who strolls out from the porch resembles an elderly Bilbo Baggins emerging from his Hobbit hole to scold an intrusive neighbour.

In conversation, he exudes a mix of warmth and cantankerousness, idealism about humanity's potential and a weariness with the modern world – at least outside the eminently sensible shire in which he lives.

He is proud of his homeland – one of the safest and least corrupt in the region – and describes Uruguay as "an island of refugees in a world of crazy people".

The country is proud of its social traditions. The government sets prices for essential commodities such as milk and provides free computers and education for every child.

Key energy and telecommunications industries are nationalised. Under Mujica's predecessor, Uruguay led the world in moves to restrict tobacco consumption. Earlier this week, it passed the world's most sweeping marijuana regulation law, which will give the state a major role in the legal production, distribution and sale of the drug.

Such actions have won praise and – along with progressive policies on abortion and gay marriage – strengthened Uruguay's reputation as a liberal country. But Mujica is almost as reluctant to accept this tag as he is to agree with the "poorest president" label.

"My country is not particularly open. These measures are logical," he said. "With marijuana, this is not about being more liberal. We want to take users away from clandestine dealers. But we will also restrict their right to smoke if they exceed sensible amounts of consumption. It is like alcohol. If you drink a bottle of whisky a day, then you should be treated as a sick person."

Uruguay's options to improve society are limited, he believes, by the power of global capital.

"I'm just sick of the way things are. We're in an age in which we can't live without accepting the logic of the market," he said. "Contemporary politics is all about short-term pragmatism. We have abandoned religion and philosophy … What we have left is the automatisation of doing what the market tells us."

The president lives within his means and promotes the use of renewable energy and recycling in his government's policies. At the United Nations' Rio+20 conference on sustainable development last year, he railed against the "blind obsession" to achieve growth through greater consumption. But, with Uruguay's economy ticking along at a growth rate of more than 3%, Mujica – somewhat grudgingly, it seems – accepts he must deliver material expansion. "I'm president. I'm fighting for more work and more investment because people ask for more and more," he said. "I am trying to expand consumption but to diminish unnecessary consumption … I'm opposed to waste – of energy, or resources, or time. We need to build things that last. That's an ideal, but it may not be realistic because we live in an age of accumulation."

Asked for a solution to this contradiction, the president admits he doesn't have the answers, but the former Marxist said the search for a solution must be political. "We can almost recycle everything now. If we lived within our means – by being prudent – the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction," he said. "But we think as people and countries, not as a species."

Mujica and his wife chat fondly about meetings with Che Guevara, and the president guesses he is probably the last leader in power to have met Mao Zedong, but he has mixed feelings about the recent revolts and protests in Brazil, Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere. "The world will always need revolution. That doesn't mean shooting and violence. A revolution is when you change your thinking. Confucianism and Christianity were both revolutionary," he said.

But he is cynical about demonstrations organised by social networks that quickly dissolve before they have a capacity to build anything lasting. "The protesters will probably finish up working for multinationals and dying of modern diseases. I hope that I am wrong about that."

Life history
Shot, arrested, jailed and elected

1969 Active in the Tupamaros revolutionary group, which earned a reputation as the "Robin Hood guerrillas" by robbing delivery trucks and banks and distributing the food and money among the poor.

1970 Arrested for the first of four times. Mujica escapes Punta Carretas prison in a daring jailbreak. Shot and wounded numerous times in conflicts with security forces.

1972 Imprisoned again. Remains in jail for more than a decade, including two years' solitary confinement at the bottom of a well, where he speaks to frogs and insects to maintain his sanity.

1985 Constitutional democracy is restored in Uruguay and Mujica is released under an amnesty law.

1994 Elected deputy and arrives at the parliament building on a Vespa scooter. A surprised parking attendant asks: "Are you going to be here long?" Mujica replies: "I certainly hope so."

2009 Wins presidential election. Only words to the media that day: "Despite all this lip service, the world is not going to change." Adopts a ruling style closer to centre-left administrations of Lula in Brazil and Bachelet in Chile, rather than harder-left leaders such as Hugo Chávez.

2012 Lauded for a speech at the UN's Rio+20 global sustainability conference in which he calls for a fight against the hyper-consumption that is destroying the environment. "The cause is the model of civilization that we have created. And the thing we have to re-examine is our way of life."

2012 Announces that the presidential palace would be included among the state shelters for the homeless. Meanwhile, Mujica continues to live in his small farmhouse outside Montevideo.

2013 Mujica's government pushes the world's most progressive cannabis legalisation bill through Congress. "This is not about being free and open. It's a logical step. We want to take users away fromclandestine business," he says.

*Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, Friday 13 December - added reporting by Mauricio Rabuffetti

**http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/13/uruguay-president-jose-mujica

Make Love Not War...

I stumbled onto this add quite by mistake. It draws you in initially , appearing to be somewhat 'activist' in it's approach and of course everyone's a sucker for a good romance. But if you think about it more carefully then it's obvious that the daily reinforced media stereotypes of who is fighting, how they are fighting and who we should support are so clearly drawn that watching this advert anyone can identify the 'bad guys' or threats to world peace that dominate the news. Not only are the real politics far too oversimplified but I think it's disrespectful to capitalise on the suffering of millions of victims of wars globally to sell underarm deodorant, or anything else for that matter.

We Assumed Female Infanticide Ended In Pagan Arabia...

A report claiming female babies are being aborted on a mass scale within Britain’s immigrant communities has brought controversy—and condemnation from pro-choice groups.

A global war on girls, which is endemic in parts of the developing world, may have landed in Britain according to a study that claims some immigrant families are using selective terminations to choose the sex of their children.

Afghan, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in Britain have been accused of aborting female fetuses by the Independent newspaper. An analysis of government figures suggests that the proportion of second and third born children within those groups is statistically abnormal—favoring the birth of boys.

“There is absolutely no doubt that these terminations, where a mother has an abortion because the child is a girl, are taking place within the South Asian population in Britain,” said Jasvinder Sanghera, a rights campaigner. “I think almost any Asian woman you talk to would say she feels a pressure to have a male child. There will be many, many Asian women out there who are pregnant and who are thinking, ‘please, please let it be a boy’.

The study claims that the practice is so common that the natural 50-50 gender balance has been upended in some immigrant communities. Based on extrapolations of the data, the newspaper claims that between 1,400 and 4,700 girls are missing from the 2011 national census records of England and Wales.

Last year the British government carried out its own investigation into gender-based abortions and found no evidence that it was taking place. The newspaper conceded that families choosing to keep having children until they naturally conceived a boy could account for most of the statistical bias.

Christoforos Anagnostopoulos, a lecturer in statistics at Imperial College London, however, said that among Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Afghan communities there was evidence of a clear trend. “The only readily available explanation that is consistent with a statistically significant gender shift of the sort observed in the census data is gender-selective abortion,” he told the Independent. “In the absence of a better theory, these findings can be interpreted as evidence that gender-selective abortion is taking place.”

Families aborting female fetuses in order to guarantee the birth of a son has been a known issue in countries including India and Pakistan for decades but it is not commonly seen in western democracies. In China, the one-child policy, which was relaxed at the end of last year, has helped to create the highest gender imbalance in the world. Recent Chinese statistics suggested there were 120 newborn boys for every 100 girls.

“Where gender discrimination exists it must be tackled, but not in the form of undermining women’s rights”

A spokeswoman for Britain’s Department of Health did not comment on the results of the study, but condemned the practice of gender-based terminations “Abortion on the grounds of sex selection is against the law and completely unacceptable,” she said.

A spokeswoman for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service wrote in a series of messages on Twitter: “It is not our experience that women from any specific communities seek sex selective abortions. The claim of a “war” on female foetuses in Britain is hugely insulting to both women and to immigrant communities. Outrageous to suggest women shouldn’t have access to information about their pregnancy because they can’t be trusted to make moral decisions. Where gender discrimination exists it must indeed be tackled, but certainly not in the form of further undermining women’s rights. Women from immigrant groups request abortions for the same reasons as women from the UK—because they have a pregnancy they can’t cope with.”

Dr Sudhir Sethi, a pediatrician, claimed that some mothers were travelling back to Asia for terminations at clinics where the regulations were far less stringent. He said he knew of 12 mothers who had travelled to India for terminations of female fetuses. “There are no reliable and absolute figures to say how many [are travelling abroad for terminations] but we can say that they are more than just a few, to say the very least,” he said. “There are many travelling to India, not only from the UK but those settled in other parts of the world. It is a lucrative and a thriving business—overseas Indians are more lucrative because of the amount they can pay for this to be done.”

*Nico Hines

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/16/how-widespread-is-sex-selective-abortion.html

JeeYoung Lee...

JeeYoung Lee shoots the invisible. Whereas traditional photography submits extracts of reality to our eyes, the artist offers excerpts from her heart, her memory, or her dreams. Restrained by the inherent limits of the conventional photographic medium, she adds plastic creativity and theatrical performance to it, in order to blow life into her immense needs of expression, and interrogation.

For weeks , sometimes months, she creates the fabric of a universe born from her mind within the confines of her 3 x 6 m studio. She does so with infinite minutiae and extraordinary patience, in order to exclude any ulterior photographic alteration. Thus materialised, these worlds turn real and concretise : imagination reverts to the tangible and the photo imagery of such fiction testify as to their reality.  In the midst of each of these sets stands the artist : those self-portraits however are never frontal, since it is never her visual aspect she shows, but rather her quest for an identity, her desires and her frame of mind. Her imaginary is a catharsis which allows her to accept social repression and  frustrations. The moment required to set the stage gives her time to meditate about the causes of her interior conflicts and hence exorcise them; once experienced, they in turn become portents of hope.

Recipient of multiple artistic awards including the Sovereign Art Prize (2012), JeeYoung Lee is one the the most promising up-and-rising figureheads of the younger Korean artistic world. Her Photographs have already found their way into public collections such as th Kyoto Photographic Museum in Japan, the Incheon Foundation for Art and Culture, or even Seoul’s OCI Museum.

*http://www.opiomgallery.com/en/artistes/oeuvresphotographe/17/jeeyoung-lee

Unpermitted Whispers...

That Tehran is beleaguered by appalling traffic and toxic air is no secret. The use of that traffic as backdrop to a play in a moving taxi, especially during some of the most polluted weeks of the year, is testament to the resilient creativity of the city’s young artistic community and their readiness to push boundaries not just in terms of art but physical wellbeing.

Unpermitted Whispers is a 35-minute play that takes place in one of Tehran’s “Rahi” taxis, which traverse the city along fixed, often straight-line, routes. Rahis pick up passengers at major intersections and drop them off anywhere along their set route, making for a convenient method of getting around town and one cheaper than the minicabs available in every neighbourhood of the capital.

In contrast to the minicabs, which provide door-to-door service, the Rahi system affords passengers much more anonymity, allowing for candid and uninhibited conversation. Tehranis frequently share stories that they have overheard in these communal cabs; for many, they serve as an extension of the private sphere in which Iranians feel safe to talk about issues of the day. Unpermitted Whispers takes advantage of this unlikely superimposition of public and private to tell the story of three passengers, all women, who are picked up by a male driver at different points along his route.

To see the play, we were instructed to assemble at a busy downtown coffee shop around the corner from the University of Tehran. The modern café, run by a troop of young, funky Tehranis, is an essential part of the production. It acts as the foyer to the moving theatre.

A short wait and a couple of lattes later, we were asked by a young woman to follow her outside to the nearest intersection. We waited on the street corner just as we normally would to catch a Rahi. A nondescript older model grey Peugot stopped at our feet and the usher beckoned us to get in. Before the taxi pulled away a young woman threw herself in beside us, and the play began.

There are four shows nightly, necessitating arduous organizational exertions. For one thing, the sessions can hardly be expected to start exactly on time, since the stage is at the mercy of Tehran’s nightmarish traffic. The taxi’s dramatic maneuvers are an additional cause for concern. Twice during the performance we attended, the driver swerved violently to the side of busy Taleghani Street to facilitate the unfolding drama.

As Tehranis we are very familiar with the communal cab, both its discomforts and its possibilities: the forced intimacy that results from sitting beside total strangers, the unwanted physical contact, the vexingly loud conversations on mobiles, as well as the impromptu debates and spontaneous venting about contentious social and political topics.

The play’s first scene was performed entirely on the telephone, as we eavesdropped on a conversation of a kind with which many Iranian women are familiar: a young bride wants to go to the theatre with her university friends but needs an alibi as her traditional family and jealous husband will not approve.

The second scene involved another young woman, who had lost her brother and fiancé after they were called up for national service. It was confusing and a tad overdramatic - especially when she leapt out of the car while it was still in motion.

The third featured a chador-clad woman from the shore of the Caspian Sea – her perfect Gilan dialect would have benefitted from subtitling – in search of her abusive husband, hospitalized somewhere in the city. We were taken to three hospitals and watched as she disappeared into each to “make enquiries.”

By this point, we had willingly suspended our disbelief and were interacting naturally with her plight, more like actual Rahi passengers than spectators. I and the other woman in our little group told her she should not endure being beaten, while the male passenger resorted to an Iranian adage:“You enter your husband’s household in a white dress and you leave only in another white garment – a shroud.” This provoked a heated conversation which was missed by the actress, then evidently hanging around the A&E room of the last hospital for the sake of verisimilitude.

The play was produced by Urban Arts House, an innovative new collective of young professional artists from different disciplines who are devoted to the urban culture of Tehran. They produce and encourage the making of experimental art in and about the capital, aiming to engage the public with the arts amid the city’s everyday spaces.

The show’s creator, Azadeh Ganjeh, is a scholar of Shakespeare who specializes in environmental art. Her three female characters were ostensibly inspired by major Shakespearean figures: Othello’s Desdemona, Hamlet’s Ophelia and The Taming of the Shrew’s Katharina. I felt that the play would have made better use of its setting had she introduced some male characters from Tehran’s own bustling streets and rounded out the stories with some of the more comical moments we encounter daily negotiating life in the city.

The Rahi drivers are as vociferous as the cabbies in any metropolis and often hold court, directing the conversations within their vehicles. In Unpermitted Whispers the only male character, the driver, was no more than that, a sidekick to the drama of the three women, each trying to overcome her difficult circumstances. At best he served as a symbol for the modern Iranian man, willing to help but unable to effect any real change.

It was a little disappointing, thus, to find that the stories addressed the strains and challenges of just one half of the population. The innovative use of the urban environment, on the other hand, was effective. Our voluntary participation in the drama within this one Rahi amplified the sense of Tehran as a living stage with ongoing dramas in every unseen corner.

We were dropped off some blocks away from the coffee shop where we had started our journey by the apologetic driver, who declared that he would continue to help the lady from out of town find her husband.

Trying to find the way back to our car, we asked directions from a young couple strolling down a quiet tree-lined street. As the man stopped to assist, his female companion ignored us and continued to walk on. There were tears quietly running down her face. Was this a real lover’s tiff or were they both part of the play? For a moment, it wasn’t easy to be sure.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2013/dec/26/iran-drama-tehran-taxi

Real Role Models...

As 2013 draws to a close, "Top 10 of the year" lists are predictably ubiquitous. But here's a list I doubt you'll see elsewhere -- 10 Muslim women artists and leaders from around the world who are shaking up the status quo.

This handful of incredibly talented visionaries and change-makers are all selected from the hundreds included in the International Museum of Women's virtual exhibition, Muslima: Muslim Women's Art & Voices. No matter what part of the world these women hail from, not one of these exceptional leaders is limited by her faith or gender. Instead, each uses her identity to courageously overturn conventional roles and blaze an extraordinary path for herself -- an unthinkable accomplishment that will leave you deeply moved and inspired. (For my picks of change-makers closer to home, check out "10 American Muslim Women You Should Know.")

1. Zainah Anwar is a founding member of the revolutionary Malaysian organization, Sisters in Islam. The pioneering work of SIS aims to understand Islam from a women's rights perspective and create an alternative public voice for Muslim women demanding equality and justice. This mission led it to create Musawah in 2009, where Anwar is currently the Director. For over 20 years, Anwar has been at the forefront of the women's movement pushing for an end to the use of Islam to justify discrimination against women. She says, "First of all, there is nothing in the Quran that denies a woman's right to drive, to be educated, or to be treated as equal to men. There are of course verses that have been misinterpreted to justify all these forms of discrimination and ill-treatment of women... The Muslim world desperately needs a paradigm shift on how we regard and treat women. If we had been true to the message of the Quran, we really should be at the forefront of the feminist movement today!"

2. Trained as an attorney in Iran, Dr. Shirin Ebadi set up a private practice in 1992 handling contentious cases. She was the defense lawyer for many controversial political and human rights cases in Iran, including Parvaneh and Dariush Foroohar (well-known political activists killed by security forces) and Zahra Bani Yaghoob (a young doctor killed in detention). These activities led to her incarceration on charges of spreading and publishing lies against the Islamic Republic. She spent 25 days in solitary confinement. But the international community recognized her work and awarded Dr. Ebadi the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. Dr. Ebadi used some of the prize money to set up an office for the Center for Defenders of Human Rights and support the families of political prisoners. Although a role model to many, Dr Ebadi says she is "opposed to following a role model. I often tell my daughters not to follow me as a role model. I have not followed any role models. I tell young women, in particular, that you need to be yourself and follow your own dreams. I tell them to make efforts to reach their goals and not fear the possibility of failure."

3. Maria Bashir is the first female Prosecutor General in Afghanistan. In her groundbreaking role, she has taken on the mission of educating and empowering the women in her community of Herat of their Islamic and civic rights. The knowledge Bashir is imparting is empowering women to file police reports and claim their rights to safety and equal treatment. The sad irony is that while Bashir protects women and children, her own life is under threat from both the local government and the Taliban. Bashir has sent her children out of the country to keep them safe while she herself moves from safe house to safe house. For her brave work, the United States Department of State presented her The International Women of Courage Award, which is awarded annually to women around the world who have shown leadership, courage, resourcefulness and willingness to sacrifice for others, especially for better promotion of women's rights. She says, "The message that I give to young girls is that there is no career that they cannot do as long as they are equipped with the knowledge. I also make them aware of their rights, and I tell them that if they work in the government of Afghanistan, they can have a significant role in rule of law, and specifically justice for women. I believe it so important to lead society toward justice!"

4. Fahima Hashim is the director of Salamah Women's Resource Center in Sudan, whose most successful campaign has been to reform laws on rape that, in their current form, prevent the survivors of sexual violence from accessing justice. Sudanese laws currently grant conditional immunity to officials, especially police and security forces, many of whom have been accused of rape. The initiative would also end the use of rape as a weapon of war in Darfur. Since launching this initiative, rape cases and child sexual abuses are now covered in the daily newspapers and the government is allying with civil society to reform rape law, thereby protecting women and children. She says her "country is experiencing an identity crisis, especially after the separation of South Sudan. Some are trying to understand, and some will migrate. Salamah works with a big number of university gradates and university students, and they give me hope that change will come and new men are walking together with women, equally."

5. Laila Shawa was born in 1940 to one of Gaza's old landowning families. She took up residence in London in 1987 and soon after started her socio-political critique Women And The Veil, resulting in acclaimed paintings like The Impossible Dream. Shawa's pioneering work during the 1980s of utilizing photography as integral to art production has left a lasting mark on contemporary Palestinian art. For the artist, it signified a departure from the traditional paint medium and instigated such works as the controversial installation Crucifixion 2000: In the Name of God at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. In January 2009, in response to the invasion of Gaza by Israel and the high death toll among children, she created a Gaza III series. Another powerful series titled Cast Lead references the high number of children killed in the airstrike operation by the Israeli air force, also called Cast Lead. In Shawa's powerful work, the political is often the personal. When asked about her courage, she says, "I come from a long line of strong women. My grandmothers were very powerful; my mother was a follower of Simon De Beauvoir. I grew up as an equal, and always believed in the power (and to some extent the supremacy) of women. Watching women subdued -- but above all, seeing women accept it -- is something I could not accept."

6. Born in Afghanistan, Dr. Sakena Yacoobi grew up seeing widows forced to beg for money or work for just a little food. She saw women and children who could not read and the impact poverty was having on her country: there were no clinics, no schools, no way for people to learn skills that would better their lives. To change that, Dr. Yacoobi founded Afghan Learning Institute (AIL) to bring education and work training to women and girls. In 1995, the organization began by helping in refugee camps then soon supported secret homeschools inside Afghanistan. After the fall of the Taliban, AIL established learning centers where people can come to get an education and the skills they need to have a better life. For her incredible devotion to promoting education and heath services, Dr. Yacoobi was awarded the 2013 Opus Prize, which comes with a $1 million award. Dr. Yacoobi says she feels optimistic about the future: "I see a future in Afghanistan where women and men work together as equals, where no one's human rights are abused, where there is harmony and justice for all. Already there are communities of men and women where this is happening. I pray, in the future, those will be the only communities in Afghanistan."

7. Human Rights lawyer Zarizana Aziz is the Board Chair of Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), an international solidarity network that provides information, support and collective space for women whose lives are shaped, conditioned or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam. For more than two decades WLUML has linked individual women and organizations. She was President of the Women's Crisis Centre (now Women's Centre for Change) in Malaysia, where she provided legal and emotional support to victims of violence against women. Most recently, she was shortlisted for the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women in Law and Practice. She says, "Do not accept that women are born to suffer discrimination, inequality and violence. The more you learn the better you will understand how culture and religion have been politicized to justify discrimination and silence women's voices. Culture is dynamic and is influenced by contemporary societal needs and must reflect our understanding of justice and equality."

8. Tamsila Tauqir is the founder of the Safra Project, a group that works to empower Muslim lesbian, bisexual and trans. Located in the UK, Safra Project has three key aims: to empower Muslim lesbian, bisexual and trans (Muslim LBT) women to deal with the issues they face resulting from their sexual orientation and/or gender identity within the context of their ethnic, cultural and religious background; to raise awareness on the needs of and issues relating to Muslim LBT women in order to make service provision accessible and appropriate; and to eliminate prejudice and discrimination experienced by Muslim LBT women and to promote diversity. Safra comes from the Arabic word Safr, meaning to journey or travel. The organization chose this name because their mission is to support women on their journey. Asked about a recent success story, Tauqir told me about a British woman who wanted to bring her partner over from Pakistan on a fiancé visa. She says, "It took just under a year of evidence gathering, writing letters to the Home Office and UK Border Agency, involving the local Member of Parliament, seeking appropriate legal advice but it happened. Just a few months ago the partner came over to the UK and recently the two women had a small civil partnership ceremony to legalize their commitment... Now plans are being made for the shaadi (wedding), with all the glitz and glamour you can imagine of a Bollywood movie... And Safra Project will be there to share their joyous day, inshallah."

9. Dr. Sima Samar is the Chairperson for the Afghan Human Rights Commission. In this position, she oversees the conduct of human rights education programs across Afghanistan, the implementation of a nationwide women's rights education program, and monitoring and investigation of human rights abuses across the country. Dr. Samar convened the Commission, which is the first Human Rights Commission in Afghanistan's history. Trained as a doctor, Samar became a leader for educating Afghan women and girls. She founded The Shuhada Organization, which now operates 55 schools for girls and boys in Afghanistan and 3 schools for Afghan refugees in Quetta, Pakistan. She also served as the Minister of Women's Affairs in Afghanistan in 2002, before being forced to resign due to death threats for questioning conservative Islamic laws. Dr. Samar has spent her life working for improved education, health, and equality for women and girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When speaking of her achievements, Dr. Samar says, "When I look back I feel really happy because it took a long time to get to this position. But one thing that you can be sure of is if you have commitment and dedication you will reach your objective. My objective was not always to be in a position of power, but in a position where men could admit that women are also able to work as human beings."

10. Boushra Almutawakel has worked as a photographer for the United Nations, CARE International, the Royal Netherlands Embassy, the Social Organization for Family Development, the National Institute for Health Education, The British Council, The French Embassy, among other others, while pursuing her own personal photographic projects. In 1999, she was honored as the first Yemeni Woman Photographer by the Empirical Research and Women's Studies Centre at Sana'a University. She is a founding member of Al-Halaqa in Sana'a, an artists' group that created a space for discourse and exhibitions and forged links with international artists. Among other places, her work has been acquired by the British Museum in London, The Museum of Fine Arts of Boston and the Barjeel Foundation. Her "Hijab Series" was inspired after 9/11 when women wearing the veil were commonly portrayed in the media as weak, oppressed, and backwards. Almutawakel saysshe wanted to portray the hijab "as a form of self-expression... I want to explore the many faces and facets of the veil based on my own personal experiences and observations: the convenience, freedom, strength, power, liberation, limitations, danger, humor, irony, variety, cultural, social, and religious aspects, as well as the beauty, mystery, and protection."

To read the entire profiles of these ten incredible women and to meet more extraordinary leaders and artists from around the world, visit the revolutionary Muslima exhibition. Add your voice by tweeting to us at @IMOWomen to let us know who you would include in this list of Muslim women or leave a note in the comments below.

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