2013-05-25T01:32:23-04:00 Rachel Newcomb http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=rachel-newcomb Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Rachel Newcomb Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1148057 2011-12-15T11:52:37-05:00 2012-02-14T05:12:02-05:00

Rachel Newcomb http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-newcomb/
An ordinary episode in just another voyeuristic reality television show, right? Apparently not, according to the Florida Family Association, which urged advertisers to boycott the show, All-American Muslim. In their words, "this program is attempting to manipulate Americans into ignoring the threat of jihad and to influence them to believe that being concerned about the jihad threat would somehow victimize these nice people in this show." The implication is that by depicting some Muslims as human beings, even proud American citizens, we might forget the looming threat of terrorism everywhere. Because when they're not cheering on the local football team or working out at the gym, surely these Muslims of Dearborn, Michigan are also raising money to send a cousin to an al-Qaeda training camp or figuring out the best locations to plant a bomb in the Detroit Metro Airport.

The problem is not that groups like Florida Family Association want us to be alert to the signs of jihad,but that most Americans have no idea what the signs of jihad might look like. With a basic ignorance of the everyday lives of Muslims, Americans are more likely to view all symbols of Muslim life with fear, suspicion, and hatred: things like headscarves and mosques, for example. As blogger Spencer Ackerman wrote, in criticizing FBI training materials (since pulled) that urged FBI employees to be suspicious of devout Muslims, "Focusing on the religious behavior of American citizens instead of proven indicators of criminal activity like stockpiling guns or using shady financing makes it more likely that the FBI will miss the real warning signs of terrorism."

More disturbing than the Florida Family Association's hateful campaign, however, is the decision of major retailer Lowe's to pull its advertising from the program. In justifying their decision, a Lowe's spokesperson said, "Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising." It is clear that All-American Muslim has become a lightning rod for intolerance, and by pulling its ads, Lowe's has aligned itself with attempts to exclude and marginalize American Muslims. And there is a danger in this for the retail giant's bottom line, since American Muslims have a purchasing power of more than $12 billion.

In a growing backlash, a petition calling for other companies to defend American values against bigotry and publicly denounce the move to pull advertising has already gathered more than 30,000 signatures. Adding political weight to this is Senator Ted Lieu of California's statement decrying Lowe's decision as "un-American" and "naked religious bigotry." Along with other public figures, including rap impresario Russell Simmons, Lieu has also raised the threat of a boycott, and possibly legislative action.

Reality TV programmers have increasingly combed America's subcultures to gain the attention of viewers. Little people. Exterminators. Preschool beauty pageants. But amid the sea of lousy reality TV programming that has come to dominate the television landscape, All-American Muslim sheds light on a population Americans should learn more about, not to be lulled into a false sense that there is no more terrorism, but to see that Muslims themselves are much more diverse than we think. Because in addition to meeting the devout, hijab-wearing Suehalia and Samira, we also meet their sister, tattooed, outspoken special education worker Shadia. Potential nightclub entrepreneur Nina, with her Shakira-like blonde mane and tight clothes, also shatters our stereotypes about Muslims.

If the example of history has been any indication (think Japanese internment campus in the United States during World War II), demonizing an entire population in our midst can only foster further hatred and misunderstanding. By highlighting the everyday problems American Muslims face, TLC's pioneering new show goes a long way toward finding common ground and fostering cultural understanding.
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Rachel Newcomb http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-newcomb/ lashed out against anthropologists, the latest whipping boy of the social sciences. "If I'm going to take money from a citizen to put into education then I'm going to take money to create jobs," Scott said. "So I want that money to go to degree where people can get jobs in this state. Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don't think so." Later, in a radio interview, Scott reaffirmed his beef with anthropologists, stating: "It's a great degree if people want to get it. But we don't need them here." Setting aside the fact that his own daughter was an anthropology major, perhaps Scott needs to be schooled on what modern-day anthropologists actually do. In many cases, our research involves not only understanding other cultures but also enhancing productivity, improving efficiency, and yes, strengthening the economy as well.

Students at the University of South Florida, which has one of the strongest applied anthropology programs in the country, created a presentation designed to show Scott what they are already doing to improve life in Florida, most of them even before finishing their degrees. In just a few of the examples shown, they are helping to increase state park revenues, to aide in crime scene reconstruction, and to create preventive health care programs that save taxpayers money by reducing the number of emergency room visits.

As a professor of anthropology at Rollins College, a liberal arts college in Florida, I spend a lot of time talking to students who need to offer their parents concrete evidence of how anthropology can help them get a job someday. Many parents still seem to hold the stereotype that the only career options for anthropologists involve traipsing around remote jungles taking peyote with the natives, or perhaps following the Grateful Dead. But to them, and to Rick Scott, I point out that our department's recent graduates have gone on to hold prestigious Fulbright fellowships, go to Columbia law school, open successful local businesses, and attend graduate programs in business, public health, human resources and, of course, anthropology.

Rather than suggesting that we don't need any more anthropologists here in Florida, we could look at how some highly successful corporations have utilized anthropologists to make more money. Intel, for instance, hired anthropologist Genevieve Bell to study how people around the world use technology, helping Intel snag access to coveted but previously untapped markets. Microsoft, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Xerox have also hired anthropologists for similar reasons. The anthropology major teaches not only rigorous critical thinking but also how people adapt to uncertainty, skills that should be valued in our current economic situation, with a state unemployment rate of 10.7%, 1.6% higher than the nationwide average.

It seems like the larger issue, though, is not just with anthropology majors but with the liberal arts more generally. Scott, like a state senator who recently attacked political science and psychology, seems to believe that only business, science, and technology can bring jobs to the state. As America scrambles to cling to its number one position in the midst of an economic slump, we've heard the call from many quarters to dismantle liberal arts educations in favor of science and technology. This is ironic in an era in which China and India are seeking to enhance their more technical educational systems with a liberal arts perspective. And it is also short sighted. Despite China's current world economic dominance, its own leaders have complained that the Chinese educational system fails to produce innovative, creative thinkers. One third of its recent graduates are unemployed, a fact many attribute to the lack of creativity and critical thinking that a purely rote, technological education fails to foster. To remedy this, China has begun adopting a liberal arts model in its newer universities. In India, for similar reasons, industrialists are investing millions of dollars into private liberal arts educations. G.V Suresh, a former anthropology major and head of HR and India operations for SonicWALL, a global Internet security company, calls the future for anthropology majors bright, saying in a major Indian newspaper that "sometimes candidates with [an] Anthropology background are preferred over MBAs." So, if Governor Scott wants to send the anthropologists out of state, along with other liberal arts majors, India and China may have a place for them.
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Rachel Newcomb http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-newcomb/ All conventions have their uniforms, marking attendees as members of a certain tribe. Blocks away from the Orlando Convention Center, I begin to spot sinewy women and men in DayGlo plumage, clutching their water bottles in the Florida heat. For four days over this past weekend, several thousand members of the Zumba Instructor Network (ZIN) gathered to catch up with the latest developments in their field. It was the fourth international Zumba convention, and the tenth official anniversary of Zumba itself.


Zumba classes are everywhere these days, boasting 12 million regular attendees in 125 different countries. In a typical class, participants dance their way through an hour-long mélange of styles: salsa, cumbia, hip-hop and belly dancing, to name just a few. At my local gym, the wall-thumping bass of a reggaeton song is audible throughout the entire building, luring people of all ages into the always-packed classes. Zumba classes have been described as happy hour without the drinks. "Ditch the workout -- join the party," is the program's trademarked slogan.

Founder Alberto "Beto" Perez created Zumba by accident in Cali, Colombia when he forgot his usual aerobics tape and improvised using salsa cassettes from his car. In 1999, Beto came to Miami, where he officially started the Zumba program along with two Colombian entrepreneurs. To become a licensed instructor, teachers take an eight-hour course, after which they can teach Zumba wherever they want. As members of the Zumba Instructor Network, they receive bimonthly choreography and music to use in preparing their classes.

In rooms throughout the convention center, scores of instructors follow the movements of professional dancers on a stage in master classes with titles like "Bollywood Magic" and "Colombian Connection." Zumbawear fashions -- cargo pants, tanks and hoodies -- take their cues from hip-hop culture. In one room, everyone dances in the dark with glow sticks attached to their fingertips. Pitbull and Wyclef Jean have both performed this weekend. But Beto is the clear star here. Instructors tweet his whereabouts, nab him en route to workshops for an autograph, and generally revere him as the guru of the movement. Reputedly modest, Beto has created choreography for stars like Shakira (that other hip-shaking Colombian export).

Instructors at the Zumba convention come from countries ranging from Iceland to Japan. Many of them are playing hooky from their day jobs to be here, working toward additional certifications that will license them to teach children or seniors. Other instructors say the convention reaffirms the sense of community they get from Zumba. Amanda Grant, a Zumba Education Specialist (ZES) from Canada, puts it this way: "It's a family-oriented company: come by yourself, leave with new friends."

One of the criticisms leveled at the program is that training for instructors is too lax, leading to student injuries. The Zumba Education Specialists are aware of this, and they encourage instructor certification with the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America to ensure they are educated about exercise safety and physiology. But I believe that one could criticize any number of programs that bring people to fitness who might otherwise never exercise at all.

So does it work? A typical class can burn up to 500 calories. And there are no shortage of success stories. I meet one woman who has lost over a hundred pounds. Another instructor tells me about a student who confessed that Zumba kept her from committing suicide. "It's cool to be a part of something that can change lives," Grant says.

As an anthropologist, I wonder whether throwing together dance styles from completely different cultural contexts waters them down, resulting in a loss of deeper meanings. But the instructors disagree. "They actually bring experts from those cultures to teach others," Nicole Ramirez, an instructor from New Jersey, tells me. In fact, the conference program accurately details the history of dance forms like Capoeira, a martial arts-based dance that originated among Brazilian slaves in the 16th century. If anything, Zumba introduces people to music they might not otherwise hear. Ramirez, who is Puerto Rican, says her family is thrilled that music from their heritage has been integrated into the Zumba program. "They love listening to my mixes," she says.

Skeptics might be tempted to dismiss Zumba as yet another exercise fad (anyone remember Tae Bo?), one that will fade as soon as the next life-changing fitness craze is discovered. Yet after ten years, the Zumba program is going stronger than ever. The corporation's ability to reinvent itself and emphasize Zumba as a lifestyle (and not just as a dance fitness program) will determine its success. Judging from the almost evangelistic fervor of the instructors I met this weekend, and the addictiveness of the classes I've personally attended, for the foreseeable future, the Zumba party is here to stay.
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Rachel Newcomb http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-newcomb/ Wanderlust: A Love Affair With Five Continents, should be mandatory summer reading. Throughout her 20s, while most of her peers were busy establishing careers and starting families, Eaves tried on identities through travel: diplomatic intern in Karachi, backpacker in Australia, deckhand in New Zealand. At 20, she was living in Cairo and taking spontaneous jaunts to Yemen; a few years later, we find her hiking leech-infested trails in Papua New Guinea. The "wanderlust" of the title refers not just to the desire for travel but also to the possibility of finding that mythical combination of relationship and destination that will always maintain the intensity of first contact.

In college, it is a boyfriend who first inspires Eaves to go away, his airmail missives offering tantalizing descriptions of hitchhiking through Fiji and New Zealand. Stunned with the realization that you could simply "go off into the world and let it carry you along," she begins studying Arabic, though in preparation for what, she's not yet sure. A summer job as an au pair on the Costa Blanca in Spain sets the pattern: a guy (the son of a local restaurateur), an element of danger (high speed motorcycle rides), then the longed-for moment when both the place and the man will become a memory. "I was already anticipating my own nostalgia, looking forward to the moment when I would look back," she writes.

Throughout her life, Eaves grapples with the social expectation to stay put and the ambition to disappear again. Men are part of the pleasure of imagining an alternative existence elsewhere, the distant objects in which she invests her infatuation for the unknown. But men, like exotic locales, have a way of losing their sheen once they become part of a routine. The boredom of a relationship gone companionate is often the impetus for her to leave again, trailing mortgages, fiancés, and jobs in her wake.

Eaves' memoir is not only a reflection on love and travel. Her cultural observations are astute, particularly in the book's early chapters. In Cairo, for example, she learns to dissociate from harassment while still embracing the beauty of the culture, its "hospitality and humor, wizened skippers plying the Nile, the calm of the desert on the edge of town." But Wanderlust is also an investigation of what it means to travel as a woman. Determined to seek unencumbered movement in the privileged way Western men have traveled since the colonial period, Eaves constantly dreams of escape, and of losing herself on unfamiliar landscapes, with unknowable, perfect lovers. Yet this desire, as the author herself acknowledges, is an illusion. "I craved total freedom," she writes, "and I envied boys because I thought they could have it. But there was a way in which, as a girl, I could act free but never quite get there in my head." Reflecting on the example of colonial-era women who traveled with a native entourage, she decides that her "modern twist on safety-in-numbers was to bring a boyfriend." With the threat of harassment or sexual violence always looming in the shadows, this might also be a subconscious reason that Eaves often seeks a male travel companion.

Love and travel are paradoxically similar, and the desire behind both is to remain in a moment that is, by definition, ephemeral. Wanderlust is a deeply satisfying narrative, though not one that Eaves resolves with any neat acceptance of the compromises of domestic stability. Such an ending would have been false to the ambivalence she expresses, not to mention the choices she has made against the grain of gender expectations. There are other female models for this: writers like the Swiss explorer Isabelle Eberhardt, born in 1877, who crossed the deserts of North Africa dressed as a Muslim man, was targeted by an assassin who almost severed her arm, and ultimately died in a flash flood in the Algerian desert. "A nomad I will remain for life, in love with distant and uncharted places," Eberhardt once wrote. We can only hope that the 21st century is more forgiving.
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Rachel Newcomb http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-newcomb/ attack yesterday, are a mainstay of this bustling marketplace and tourist attraction in the center of Marrakech. In the square, snake charmers and fortune-tellers compete for attention with herbalists hawking homemade Viagra and self-proclaimed dentists hang out their shingle with rows of teeth and pliers arrayed on a cloth before them. Storytellers assemble crowds to listen to Moroccan folk tales while acrobats and monkeys tumble for tourists and locals alike. Rows of outdoor food stands sell savory meat roasted deep in the desert sands for over 24 hours, fresh orange juice, and land snails served up in a broth.

Tourist attraction though it may be, the gatherings are spontaneous, as much a spectacle for other Moroccans as for foreigners. In the second story Café Argana, tourists could escape the chaos and still be in the center of things, sipping mint tea and watching shadows grow on the red walls at sunset while still enjoying the exotic din of the square below.

On April 28 a bomb tore through the heart of the café, killing at least 16. It is not the first time Morocco has experienced an attack. In 2003, bombs in Casablanca ended the lives of 45 (though none were tourists), and an attack near the US Consulate in an Internet café in 2007 killed the suicide bomber while wounding several more. The 2003 attacks, happening in the context of September 11 and the War on Terror, rallied Moroccans around the figure of the popular King Mohammed VI. Many of the 2003 bombers were found to have come from the poor shantytowns outside the city of Casablanca, resulting in a subsequent campaign to build permanent housing and focus on ending urban poverty. Indeed, Morocco's levels of absolute poverty have declined since, and Morocco has worked hard to remove some of the conditions that contribute to extremism.

Tourism revenues have since skyrocketed, with almost 9 million visitors to the country in 2010. Tourism represents 10% of Morocco's GDP, and in the past ten years, Marrakech has turned into a radically different city. This has not always been a good thing. Costs of living have skyrocketed, and foreigners have bought up hundreds of ancient houses in the old city, turning crumbling riyads into palaces whose interiors grace the pages of foreign architectural magazines. With the influx of tourists, the city has also experienced increasing problems with sex trafficking and child prostitution, something that the Moroccan government has actively taken measures to address. Nevertheless, for some Moroccans, Marrakech's success has also resulted in a city seemingly out of control.

The attack will no doubt be a blow to tourism, which was already down this year in the face of regional unrest. What it will do to Morocco's own protest movement, which has consistently fielded its own largely peaceful demonstrations since February 20, is another open question. News reports have already begun to emerge suggesting that Morocco may feel that the protests have created a climate of instability that now necessitates a crackdown. This would be a shame, as the protests have been touted as a model of civility and dialogue regionally, and a positive step toward democratization.

In videos taken after the attacks, police mumble into walkie-talkies and Moroccans mill about the square, looking dazed. Only the skeletal outlines of the second-story café remain: a wooden splintered roof falling in on itself, shards of furniture scattered on the floor around a brilliantly intact, blue and red mosaic wall.

Jma El Fna is one of the world's most unique places, a spontaneous carnival that manages to recreate itself, day after day, serving a vital human need for community. Even in the 21st century, wandering in the square, one has the illusion of being part of a spectacle from days when street performers also served as itinerant journalists, bringing news from other towns and cities. Now, news of the blasts was transmitted almost instantly via the Internet, a sign that even as Jma El Fna appears to exist somewhere outside of time, the square, and Morocco itself, are very much a part of the tumultuous currents that have rocked the rest of the region. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.851655 2011-04-20T15:47:50-04:00 2011-06-20T05:12:01-04:00

Rachel Newcomb http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-newcomb/ 60 Minutes, allegations emerged that Greg Mortenson, the philanthropist mountain climber and author of Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time, may have been less than truthful in his memoir. Author Jon Krakauer asserted that Mortenson's story of the hospitality of villagers who cared for Mortenson after he became disoriented while climbing K2 in Pakistan, is false, as are other anecdotes from the book, including his story of a 1996 kidnapping at the hands of the Taliban. More damaging are allegations that Mortenson mismanaged funds from the school-building charity he founded, Central Asia Institute.

Rumors of falsehoods in heroic memoirs set in Afghanistan are actually nothing new. In 2007, Michigan beautician Deborah Rodriguez, bestselling author of The Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil, faced similar accusations. In this case, Rodriguez was accused of lying about being the sole founder of a beauty school, one that would empower long-oppressed Afghan women to discard their burkas and liberate themselves through knowledge of cosmetology and haircare. The veracity of this book's colorful anecdotes also came under scrutiny, including one tale in which Rodriguez saves the honor of a new bride by helping her disguise the fact that she's not a virgin on her wedding night. Some of the Afghan women Rodriguez worked with claimed that she did not make good on her financial promises to them, and that she exploited their stories while putting their personal safety in jeopardy. The school itself is no longer open, and Rodriguez has long since fled Afghanistan and split up with the warlord husband she married after a twenty-day courtship.

In another sensational but related story, Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad was successfully sued in 2010 for libel by Shah Muhammad Rais, the bookseller whom she depicted as a tyrant and a misogynist in her bestseller, The Bookseller of Kabul. Unlike Mortenson and Rodriguez, however, Seierstad made no claims of philanthropy.

These literary controversies point to a problem in our collective American psyches: our attraction to narratives in which Western do-gooders jet off to exotic countries to singlehandedly "save" the less fortunate. Conveniently, these types of stories ignore the roles that the West has played in creating those war-torn places to begin with. And while we find ourselves getting riled up over literary half-truths, the budget to foreign aid, particularly of the type that might contribute to a deeper understanding of places like Afghanistan, is under threat.

Public opinion polls reveal that Americans wrongly believe that 25% of our budget is dedicated to foreign aid, when in actuality the figure is closer to 1%. Republican Paul Ryan's proposal to balance the budget would have reduced foreign aid by 44% over the next four years. The most recent House resolution, passed last Friday, represents a cut of about a half a billion to last year's programs. American contributions to the UN will be trimmed by a dramatic 23%, while aid to development programs such as the Millenium Challenge Corp and Economic Support Fund has also been slashed. As it stands, the foreign aid budget for 2011 will be $48 billion. The defense budget, by contrast, represents $531 billion.

In particular, we should be concerned about possible cuts to funds for language study and scholarly research, such as Title VI, which supports university programs that offer training in lesser-known languages, like Pashto. The Fulbright Scholars program, designed to encourage research and exchange among American and foreign scholars, will likely also be reduced. These cuts are potentially devastating when you consider that language training and research go a long way toward contributing to accurate knowledge about parts of the world where America maintains an active military presence.

It seems that the lesson behind this most recent literary scandal is that we should take our three cups of tea with a grain of salt. For the short term, American military intervention will continue, and no doubt we'll export other heroic tales of Americans saving the people of Afghanistan, even if the reality is often much more ambivalent. Yet our national budget must also contain support for language training, scholarly research, and development initiatives rooted in a profound engagement with the host population. Otherwise, we will be likely to find ourselves living the words of the Greek historian Thucydides: that "the society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.843156 2011-03-31T16:07:50-04:00 2011-05-31T05:12:01-04:00

Rachel Newcomb http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-newcomb/ female bodyguards, or his Ukrainian nurse, the women who have flanked him during his public appearances over the past several years. By various indicators, women had it relatively good in this oil-rich North African country. In matters of human development, as measured by the United Nations, Libya ranks 53rd out of 169 countries, the highest position of any African country. And for women, among issues such as literacy (71%), reproductive health, and workforce participation, Libya appears to be doing better than many of its peers in the Middle East and Africa. In measures of gender inequality, Libya ranks 52nd overall.

Yet when a Libyan woman named Eman al-Obeidy stumbled into a Tripoli hotel on Saturday to beg the foreign press corps to save her from Libyan security forces whom she accused of torturing and gang raping her, the world saw another side of Libya's women. This is the Libya cited in a 2006 Human Rights Watch report for its "rehabilitation centers," where women accused of sexual impropriety are forcibly confined and sometimes sexually assaulted by their captors in the process of being "rehabilitated" for shaming Libyan society. Along these lines, Gaddafi's spokesman Mussa Ibrahim was quick to condemn al-Obeidy as "drunk and mentally unstable," and later accused her of being a prostitute. He added that he couldn't "see anything political about her situation."

Yet al-Obeidy's accusations are anything but apolitical.

Al-Obeidy's visible panic, her frantic words and gestures before the security forces hauled her away, are potent reminders of the dangers women face in wartime. The prevalence of sexual violence in modern conflict prompted former UN peacekeeper Patrick Cammaert to assert that "It is now more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in modern wars." Not only are women likely to be victims of sexual violence: along with children, they constitute 80% of those displaced by conflict. Victims often face unimaginable stigmas, and in some cases, remain in the same communities with the men who attacked them.

The United Nations has done much to try to raise awareness that rape during wartime is not merely the "collateral damage" of conflict that it was long thought to be. United Nations Resolution 1820, adopted in 2008, recognizes sexual violence against women as both a crucial security issue and a tactic of war. Rape is prohibited under international law. The resolution also calls for women to take part in peace talks, and for perpetrators to be brought to justice. Yet although violence against women during war is increasingly taken seriously as a crime, perpetrators are almost never brought to justice in international tribunals. For example, an estimated 20-50,000 women were raped during the 1992-95 conflict in Bosnia, yet only 12 attackers have been tried. In Rwanda, 500,000 women were raped in 100 days of conflict. And in the genocide trials that followed, only 3% contained any convictions for sexual violence.

Although we still don't know exactly what happened to al-Obeidy, al-Jazeera has reported that doctors in Adjabiya have found condoms and Viagra in the pockets of dead Gaddafi soldiers, evidence, they say, that rape is being used as a weapon of war in Libya. As Women's History month draws to a close, we would do well to recall that the effects of violence against women don't go away once conflicts disappear from the news. In patriarchal societies like Libya, where family honor all too often focuses on the virtue of its women, the consequences can be devastating. Women who experience this type of violence not only face physical trauma and depression but also are likely to be ostracized by their families and communities. Children born to rape victims are often prevented from achieving full legal status in society.

In a more democratic Libya, we can hope that those women able to share their stories of rape and torture would be able to see their attackers face justice. The UN also recommends that women play a prominent role in peacekeeping and rebuilding societies post-conflict. And hopefully, a democratic society would be more transparent, allowing human rights abuses like the ones documented in Libya's rehabilitation centers to hopefully be eliminated.

Eman al-Obeidy's bravery in speaking out is commendable. Unfortunately, for many women, rape is still too much of a taboo to discuss openly. And as long as it remains so, as a tactic of war, it will continue.
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Rachel Newcomb http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-newcomb/
Laroui lived with her parents and her two small children in a shantytown. As part of a human development plan, her family was eligible to receive government land on which to build something more permanent. Since most poor people cannot afford to construct their own housing, often a developer will build a multifamily structure, giving them one apartment while profiting from the sale of the others. According to the Moroccan independent newspaper Lakome, Fadwa Laroui's father acquired the land, but his daughter was refused, since she was a single mother and not considered the head of a household.

On the day Laroui set herself on fire, she had visited a local official one final time after having registered six complaints, only to be thrown out of the office and dismissed as a nuisance. Laroui's brother reported that she was angry after finding out that choice land near her father's plot would go directly to businessmen with connections, even though it was supposed to be reserved for the poor. Her family in chaos, their makeshift housing already destroyed though they still had nowhere to live, Laroui poured flammable liquid on herself in front of city hall. As flames surrounded her, her last plea, recorded on a cell phone camera and posted on YouTube, was to wonder if her sacrifice would make people "take a stand against injustice, corruption, and tyranny."

The other obstacle Laroui faced, in addition to her poverty, was her status as a single mother. Morocco is frequently praised for its progress in women's rights, with significant reforms to its marriage laws in 2004. Professional women work as doctors and lawyers, activists and university professors. Yet these types of accomplishments have only touched the upper strata of society. 64% of Moroccan women are illiterate, and 130 out of 100,000 women still die in childbirth each year. For single mothers, whose very existence challenges taboos about female sexuality, the situation is dire. Most single mothers are poor, and as many as 90% of them, according to Moroccan activist Souad Tawessi, were once child maids. Young girls from impoverished rural families are often sent to the cities to work as maids in homes where they are frequently subject to physical and sexual abuse. Lacking the close supervision of girls common among the middle and upper classes, they are also more likely to get pregnant. They have no legal right to demand financial support or a paternity test, since this is tantamount to accusing the would-be father of the crime of sex outside marriage. What happens to their children is equally grim: in addition to facing the stigma of illegitimacy, some end up in orphanages, while of an estimated 15-30,000 Moroccan street children, many are the children of single mothers.

The leaders of Morocco's own protests, which have been widespread throughout the country since February 20, have adopted Laroui as a martyr, although she was not an activist. Protesters insist that they do not want an overthrow of the king but a legitimate attempt to tackle the corruption and inequality that have grown worse in recent years. In the absence of international media (Morocco kicked out Al Jazeera last October), Amnesty International has already criticized Morocco for violently dispersing protesters. The Moroccan government, meanwhile, appears to be on a publicity campaign to discredit protesters and dismiss instances of violence and looting as the random acts of criminals.

Fadwa Laroui died in a Casablanca hospital on February 23. Her fiery self-sacrifice is a testimony to the hopelessness of Moroccans on the lowest rung of the social ladder. There have been six reported immolations in Morocco in the same number of weeks, two of which have resulted in death. If these individual acts of desperation are any indication, Morocco's peaceful and stable façade conceals many of the same incendiary ingredients that have resulted in revolution elsewhere.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.824008 2011-02-16T11:32:26-05:00 2011-05-25T18:30:24-04:00

Rachel Newcomb http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-newcomb/ sexually assaulted while covering the Egyptian protests, the media sprang alive in search of a scapegoat. Two disturbing lines of commentary have emerged: one that cites irrelevant details about Logan's beauty or her past sexual history, the other blaming Muslims or Egyptian culture for the assault. In the Washington Post, Alexandra Petri noted that this happened to a "known, blonde white woman." And on her blog, Debbie Schlussel wrote that "she should have known what Islam is all about." "This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled," opined Schlussel.

But we would be wrong to assume that in controlling Egyptians, Mubarak somehow also kept women safe. In fact, state-sanctioned violence against women was widespread and well documented. For years Egypt has been cited by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for using rape, torture, and sexual assault to threaten and intimidate female activists who criticized the regime. These tactics were also used against female family members of dissidents. There is also considerable evidence that members of Mubarak's security forces ordered the assault of female protesters during the recent demonstrations.

In times of conflict, the perpetrators of sexual violence cross religious and ethnic lines. An estimated 20-50,000 Muslim women were raped during the conflict in Bosnia in the 1990s. Closer to home, yesterday a class action lawsuit was announced by 17 American servicewomen who reported being raped by fellow members of the military. And in searching for spurious links between "American culture" and violence against women, we do not have to look toward military settings or exotic, war-torn locales. Take the most recent Super Bowl. Allegations of rape have hovered over both teams, while news agencies reported a disturbing increase in the sex trafficking of girls and women around the time of the Super Bowl. But we would chafe at allowing outsiders to generalize that all Americans exhibit violent tendencies toward women.

To be sure, sexual harassment is endemic in Egypt. And for the most part, we are fortunate to be able to walk down the street in the United States without the verbal and physical harassment that Egyptian women face on a daily basis. A 2005 Egypt Demographic and Health survey revealed that one third of Egyptian women are victims of domestic violence. Yet a 2010 study by the Population Reference bureau also points out that poor women are twice as likely in Egypt to be victimized. Similar studies in U.S. society have shown correlations between poverty and violence against women. And across all social classes, the statistics are grim. A U.S. Justice Department study showed that 1 in 6 of all American women will be raped during their lifetimes. 50% of all murders of women in the U.S. are committed by a romantic partner. Muslim countries hardly have the monopoly on violence against women.

To read this brutal attack as emblematic of Egyptian culture or Islam does a disservice to all those in Egyptian society who are working actively to end violence against women, women like physician Amal Abd El-Hadi, whose New Woman Foundation is dedicated to ending gender-based violence, and Dr. Aida Seif El Dawla, a psychiatrist who has created programs to rehabilitate victims of violence and torture. There is no excuse for what happened to Lara Logan, but explanations for violence should not be found in a religion, or in broad generalizations about Egyptian culture. Rather than blaming religion, we should work to end underdevelopment, poverty, and a lack of education, problems whose eradication is crucial to a prosperous and healthy society anywhere, whether in Egypt or here at home.

Rachel Newcomb is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rollins College and the author of Women of Fes: Ambiguities of Urban Life in Morocco.]]>