From: Benjamin Date: October 5, 2009 12:12:53 AM EDT To: Meredith Subject:Re: yjhr article
Hey Meredith,
Sorry it took me a little while to get in touch. Anyway, about the Israel article: I started thinking about it after you guys mentioned in Egypt that you'd like something from an Israeli perspective. I spent parts of the rest of the summer working with Israeli children who have lost a family member to terrorism, talked with the mostly right-wing Israelis who are part of that organization, and visited Sderot, so there's a lot I can talk about. My discomfort comes from the fact that I can't really write two sentences sympathetic to the Israeli cause without qualifying them with a list of the reasons the Palestinians have to be more upset. If I sit down to write an article about human rights in the Middle East, I'm not going to be talking about Israel's problems. That said, I don't think we're going to get anywhere in the region unless we understand that the Israelis, like Palestinians, are not generating their hatred out of nowhere, and so I think there's merit in presenting the Israeli side.
Basically, I'm confused about what kind of article would be most appropriate and honest. There's the option of working in both points of view by talking about my experience in the West Bank. Or I could just talk about Israel, but I'm not sure what exactly we'd consider an issue of human rights, and I'd need to figure out how to write an article about Israeli concerns without suggesting that they're the victims. In general, it seems like focusing more on my specific experiences and less on a wider-angle political piece would be helpful.
If you've got any thoughts on what would be right for the magazine, I'd love to hear them.
Best, Ben
Look forward to what Ben ultimately comes up with in the next issue of The Yale Journal of Human Rights to be released this November.
by Kunal Lunawat Branford College, Yale 2011 Q. What are your first associations when you hear about this region? A. Conflicts, struggles, armed barricades, hard-nosed diplomacy, human-rights violations, a frustrating and politicized status quo, cross-border terrorism, rising fundamentalism…
And so I began my journey into the Valley...
It was rather apt that the first few days of my stay were marked by the closure of the summer capital of the state, Srinagar. I was there to get a feel of what living in Kashmir is like, and truly bandhs, day-long curfews, had become an integral part of life in the region.
You would have to be ultra vigilant and in touch with your environment to find out the real reason behind the current shutdown in the city. It could be anything, from a mere political gimmick, to a preemptive move by the security forces and, sometimes, genuine public dissent at the current state of affairs in the city. What fascinated me the most was how these three factors merged into one another; often obliterating boundaries of individual reason and catalyzing one great mess, marked by sheer political ineptitude.
Take the Shopian rape case for instance. In a small town of the Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, two young women were raped and murdered this summer. A rather gory incident, despicable in all forms, was transformed into political mileage by the opposition. The call within the political circle seemed to be:
“A visit a day to Shopian, Will make National Conference* Go astray.”
(*National Conference is the ruling party in Jammu and Kashmir. Most of the political visits were made by the rulers of the Opposition in a bid to make the former unpopular.)
Impassioned and emotionally charged protestors took to the streets, provoking the armed forces to take action. There were barricades in sensitive areas, curfews in others, and monitoring throughout the region for fear of further repercussions. And while all this was happening, the state government, watched and mulled; a week later it set up a judicial inquiry into the incident which had been politicized, militarized, and sapped of any empathy for the victim’s family.
And while all this happened, I stumbled into these people…
We often hear of silver linings which line thick, dark masses of precipitation, but seldom come across one. Here, in the midst of standstill and chaos (Because both standstill and chaos are contradictory, yet visible in Kashmir. I guess it is nature’s beauty and man’s fight against it which make both co-exist.), I happened to meet a few people who introduced me to another side of Kashmir.
They were authors, economists, businessmen, professors and doctors: men and women who were determined improve the quality of life in their society. Yes they were affected by the debilitating political dispute, but they were also driven to look beyond it and work for the greater cause. In fact, many of them believed that by doing so, they would render the dispute sans its venom, the fear and instability that has plagued Kashmir since 1991.
And these people introduced me to what Kashmir once was…
Nature at its purest and hospitality at its best. This other Kashmir – places like Sonamarg, Gulmarg and Pahalgaon - was testimony to its claim of being paradise on Earth. These regions lay in stark contrast to the rest of the valley, almost unperturbed by the conflict which had afflicted its surroundings.
Was it Nature herself that had stood her ground and made it impossible for state and non-state actors to extend the turmoil in these regions? No. There is something more. The firm resolve of people to stay unaffected by what was happening around them, the resilience of the local populace to remain this way, come what may, and an inherent desire to retain the spirit of Kashmir had left the area in its virgin and truest form. This, I am told, was once known as Kashmiriyat, or the essence of what the Kashmir Valley stood for.
This article in 'The New York Times' is an extremely disturbing, painful, and altogether shocking read about the rape "open season" that is targeting men, women, and children in the Congo today.
Contributed by Pruittiporn Kerdchoochuen
Symbol of Unhealed Congo: Male Rape Victims
Jehad Nga for The New York Times
Clockwise from top left, Kazungu Ziwa, Shabani Lufuno, Ngabu Bita and Matata Badoda. All are Congolese men who were recently raped and agreed to be photographed.
By Jeffrey Gettleman
Published August 4, 2009
GOMA, Congo -- It was around 11 p.m. when armed men burst into Kazungu Ziwa’s hut, put a machete to his throat and yanked down his pants. Mr. Ziwa is a tiny man, about four feet, six inches tall. He tried to fight back, but said he was quickly beaten down.
“Then they raped me,” he said. “It was horrible, physically. I was dizzy. My thoughts just left me.”
I went out to dinner with Americans and Palestinians Thursday night at a restaurant 20 minutes north of Nablus to celebrate the arrival of a new bus bringing children from refugee camps to a small school in Nablus.
The bus does not allow kids to eat inside, but has trays for food and drinks. Some of the kids are illiterate and the vast majority do not know English, but there is a “STOP” button should a child need to exit the bus. Yet, the kids wait for the bus in the hot sun for hours, excited at the chance to go to school.
We, the local Palestinian and American teachers and staff members of the school, did not bother to hide our enthusiasm as we traveled outside of the city for dinner, taking the same bus that carried our new students. We hardly ever leave the city, and never before with Palestinians. But we left. And we had a wonderful dinner, laughing and bonding.
By the time we finished dinner it was 9 PM: it was finally dark enough for the driver to turn on the neon blue lights that line the bus’ inner rows – something we were all eagerly awaiting. It did not disappoint and, for a few minutes, we all sang and danced (hunched over) in the tiny (and not very tall) bus to the roaring sound of the radio. Jamila*, an extremely well- educated Palestinian woman in her 30s, forgot her nervousness, about the 3 times her mother and father called telling her to come home, and she sang along with the music. She sang. He sang. We all sang together right until we approached an Israeli military checkpoint.
And then we stood and clapped. We smiled and continued louder than before, expressing happiness as almost an act of defiance against the restrictions.
We passed 3 checkpoints during our drive.
Two soldiers at the first smiled and clapped. The second set of soldiers looked confused, not registering why this bus of Americans and Palestinians were so happy. The third set simply looked irate, wanting to wave us by as soon as possible to get rid of us. But we continued for that half hour dancing and singing, not caring what the world thought.
Yes, most of the women did not strip loose their coverings and shake it in the aisle, but they did shake their shoulders and widen their smiles. We respected one another while letting loose a little bit, something we all desperately knew the others needed.
Humans have innate rights to basic food and shelter, security and the pursuit of happiness. And they have the right to fulfill the pursuit: to latch onto it at 9 PM at night in the dead of the night in a city where there are no lights illuminating the road, where the young sports teacher remembers who killed his father.
And, in all that happiness, there was the moment when that sports teacher, Ibrahim*, became quiet. Here was this young, lanky, 25-year- old sports teacher, who lines his 5-year- old kids up in a line holding hands and leads them to a room where they can be together and have juice, sitting in a bus with cheering Palestinians and Americans. And for what reason? For what reason but to refuse to give up their right to happiness despite the occupation of their homes? Ibrahim stood and danced, he sang and clapped- but he did not forget that only last year that clapping, smiling soldier killed his father in his home.
He did not forget, and so he remembered what his kids go home to and the dangers they face. But what can he do for them but to tell them he is there- there to throw a soft ball at them and teach them how to catch it? What can he do when he knows what he goes home to – a home without a father?
Happiness is here. It is evident with every car horn celebrating a wedding or young mother having her first child. But still, the occupation remains. The reminder is everywhere and it always pops up; always creeps into the bus and reminds this young man that although a soldier may smile and clap he is there for a reason. Why, the young man wonders, does he himself have to go through the checkpoint in the first place? Why does he no longer have a father?
On Rafidia Street in Nablus, they are 4 or 5 guys basking under the trees in dark green uniforms and red-green hats casually laying down and carrying guns. They do not smile; they do not talk to you.
On Benihana Street in Jerusalem, they are young, attractive guys and girls in dark green uniforms holding backpacks, who haven’t undergone the emotional development that college instigates that makes someone keen to constantly ask questions. They laugh and hold hands, drink iced coffee and eat ice cream.
One maintains order in a land of people called Arabs.
One maintains order in a land of people called Palestinians; this is the other that gets discount prices at concerts:
50 NIS. 40 NIS for students and soldiers.
In a café in Jerusalem called Change, a young man told me that soldiers are normal, that they protect the people of Israel.
At An-Najah University in Nablus, a young woman told me that the Palestinian Authority is an unwelcome puppet, “But who cares anyways?”
Viewpoint. Twist.
The government of Israel cannot continue to manipulate, twist, and mold human rights to fit the image it wants and portray a biased story. In doing so, Israel casts itself as a victim when it clearly has the upper hand: it has the stability, power, and resources to determine and enforce how well- respected human rights are in its territory, and the Occupied Territories. The Oslo Peace Accords and every agreement before and after, should have been a matter of established human rights conventions, not power.
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