Happy Halloween!

Have a cute one!

This Month's Terrorist Activities

A total of 12 bomb attacks, and an event of 4 brutal beheading.

Deaths: 195+
Injured: 302+

No matter how small a city, the lives of the people living there is as important as those living in bigger cities, or those with higher ranks. This month has been disgraceful in that regard. The more serious events:

1. 6th, Bhakkar, Punjab. Suicide attack at the member of the Shiite community, Rashid Akbar Khan Nawani, who survived the attack; 25 dead; 60 injured.

2. 9th, Dir District, N.W.F.P. Bomb explosion near a police van carrying prisoners; 4 school children dead of the 11 total deaths.

3. 10th, Bajaur, FATA.Taliban militants behead 4 tribal leaders for attending a pro-government meeting; 81 injured.

4. 10th, Orakzai, FATA. Suicide bomber drove his car into a gathering of 600 people on open ground, and blew himself; 113 dead; 100+ injured.

What is Sarah Maple Trying To Do?

So BBC put a piece up on air regarding this emerging artist, Sarah Maple. The girl belongs to a mixed background (British/Kenyan), and has created a handful of controversial art-pieces that have led her to receiving death threats. The art gallery she was showcasing at, SaLon, was attacked with a stone thrown at it's window. While talking to an Iraqi female artist, Suad Al-Attar, BBC anchor asked if any artist is subject to death threats. Instead of answering the posed question, Al-Attar went onto voicing her criticism of Sarah, of how bad her artwork in fact is, and how she is after nothing but fame.

Ejaz Aslam of the Muslim Cultural Center, Gravesend, also criticised Sarah for putting up work that is of a highly offensive nature. He specifically mention the piece where a woman in hijab is nursing a piglet, and the two objects are in an obvious contextual contrast.



















When I first saw Sarah's work, honestly, I was a little taken aback. I was super excited for her brutality, and her strong images. But at second instance I find myself thinking, she's trying too hard. Then I find myself jumping up and down and applauding her for her big-mouth work. But then I think rationally, and I really feel, her images are not really a representation of the message she is trying to put across. They aren't helping with bridging any differences. There is no peace hidden in them, not even sarcastically. The subject matter is entirely different to what she thinks it is. It really just seems like an identity crisis. She doesn't know what to do, which side to be at, what is acceptable, and what isn't - and this is something many children may go through. I'm not Kenyan, I don't know how difficult is her life in comparison to a British Pakistani. I am also not mixed, but I know a few kids. Mostly they turn out to be respectful and intelligent people. So yeah. Sarah does need some thinking to do as to whether what is it that is really bothering her, and what is she really trying to say.

Yet Another Honor Killling

Source

It sounds crazy how something so pathetic can be reasonable to anyone. Before I get off the grief of past month's news, here I am infuriating over another.

This time in Sindh, Pakistan, a 17 year old girl, 8-months pregnant, was left at the mercy of killer dogs by her father-in-law, and then shot dead, in front of her father. The girl was accused of bearing a child out of wedlock, the father claimed that the greedy in-laws were after his family's 2.4-hectare farm.

As news reaches the government:


Throughout, the government – which at the time was lobbying Baloch members to support Mr Zardari in the presidential election – conspicuously refrained from taking a tough position. Yusaf Raza Gilani, the prime minister, described the incident only as “extremely disappointing”.

That remained the case even after Mr Zehri wrote a newspaper column on Sept 12 in Jinnah, an Urdu daily newspaper, defending honour killings.

“The involvement of female family members in extramarital sex is intolerable for any honourable man. If a close male relative cannot contain his outrage and kills the perpetrators of such a crime [extramarital sex], he is protected by Baloch laws. As long as he can prove to a tribal council that the crime took place, the jirga [council] must forgive him,” he wrote.

The absolute misfortune of Pakistan is it's feudal system, and it makes up for the foundation of the country's government. Every politician may not be a landlord, but every landlord is by default a politician or connected with politics somehow. And when the situation is so, how can the country's problems ever finish? When the ill of society is born from within this ruling, feudal sickness, I dare to say, how can there then be hope? Anyone who is not from amongst them, anyone who comes with revolutionary thoughts, and goes against corruption, is kicked out.

So if the politicians themselves are pro-honor-killings, then what else is left to say?

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Eid Mubarak