The middle east conflict

I know I haven' written anything here for ages, so I thought I'd write a comment on the situation in the middle east.

First of, I don't think too many people know the history behind the conflict, so I'll try to explain. Here's a brief explanation of the recent history:

The Israeli were on the run from an antisemitic europe, especially the nazi holocaust. They were encouraged to seek refuge in historic Palestine, at the time a british colony. The UN offered the Israeli people the better part of historic Palestine to build a new state called Israel. For the indegionus Palestinians, the uprooting of their country to make room for a new people were a destruction of life. They rejected the UN's partition plan and several Arab states invaded the new state of Israel. Israel effectively demolished over 400 Palestine villages. In 1949 they were at the end of their fight and new armistice lines were drawn up, and Israel now owned 78% of what was once historic Palestine. Only the West Bank and the Gaza Strip remained. Of the Palestinians who were expelled form their settlements during the fighting, many sought refuge in new Jewish villages, but were denied access and had to build tent camps and similar refuge camps on their own. They because second class citisens of the new state alongside the new Jewish majority.

Today, these refugees and their relatives live mostly in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan and Lebanon. Many of them are still living in refugee camps, seeking to return to their home land.

To sum up, one group of refugees found a much needed home, but it the process, a new group of refugees was created.

Now, here's another thing to understand: Israel was created as a jewish state, but ask yourself what that means. People have had a lot of ideas about what a Jewish state should look like. Some called for equality for all citisens, but what was created in practice, was institutional discrimination against non-Jews. In other words, Israel ended up being built on a blue print of exclution. The Israelian government wants the maximum of land and resources for Jews, but not for the Palestinians living there. That's why, inside Israel, Jews get special priveleges, including the right to own land and housing, which is denied for the Palestinian citisens who make up 20% of Israels population. That's also part of why Israel never defined it's borders. In fact, Israel still holds on to land that were concuered during the war, the West Bank and Gaza, building "temporary military settlements". However, the settlements have existed on occupied Palestinian land for over 40 years, and Israel has even equipped it with infrastructure cut off from the Palestinian settlements, there are Israeli schools and even a college, so it doesn't look that temporary..

On the West Bank, Israeli and Palestinians live on the same land but under completely different circumstances. While the israeli have all the resources they need, such as water and agriculture, the Palestinians has next to nothing. To keep the unjust situation in their favour, the Israeli army has punished resistance with raids, arrests and assassinations, all to gain maximum land while making life so difficult for Palestinians that they will either leave or be too frightened to speak up.

Palestinians have fought back. For decades they have tried to achieve national liberation through armed struggle. Some groups still do. The majority today, however, demonstrate their disapproving of Israeli occupation through popular protest instead.

The deeply harmful pattern of control, repression and violence has harmed both Palestinians living under occupations as well as Israelis living as occupants. This must be broken to assure a safe and peaceful future for both people.

Now, what about the solution to the problem? What about peace talks?

So far, over two decades of the US meddling in peace talks has actually made things worse. There has been years of talking and nothing has happened. In fact, Israel has continued its occupation of Palestine, ridding the West Bank and Gaza of Palestine people to make room for Jewish settlers. The US has also funded the Israeli army, making them better equipped to take over Palestine settlements, and of course thereby not helping what so ever, but probably making a lot of money. The israeli army is acrually the biggest recipiant of US foren aid in the world!

So, what has to be done? Real peace talks. Israel needs to listen to reason and Israel and Palestine needs to come to a joined solution where both people gets the amount of land that is fair and the fighting has got to stop. Nobody can go behind the curtain, making money of the conflict, like the US has done, because that will only make things even worse than they are now. Someone who genuinely wants to end the conflict needs to speak up, step up and help Israel and Palestine come to a solution, or the fight will go on for ever.


Aight, that's basically what I have to say about that! Hopefully, the conflict will come to an end at some point, let's just hope it doesn't end because Israel and Palestine has exterminated each other.

Exam day!

Hola chicas y chicos!

It's exam day! I've never ever been this excited for an exam, it's going to be brilliant because I actually know this stuff! We've had the questions for a week now and I can already tell that I'm going to kill this exam.

The first question is "Different communities and identity groups share a varied relationship to the criminal justice system. Discuss this assertion in relation to either gender or race, outlining and evaluating the central issues in relation to crime and criminal justice."

In this question, I plan to focus on gender and write about women in the Criminal Justice system. Women are largely underrepresentated in comparison to men. Less than 1 in 5 people arrested are female and only 5% of prison inmantes are women! Another thing I'm planning to concentrate on is the fact that there is a notion of "double deviance" with women offenders. Women are seen as the care takers of society, who should preferrably be in caring professions like teachers, nurses, midwifes and so on (for my thoughts on this subject, see the last entry, called "I'm a feminist because") and for this reason, when women offend, the general reaction is that we abuse our caring position in society to con and trick people. One of the examples I'm going to refer to is the mothers of Ian Watkins victims. Ian Watkins was the vocalist in the Welsh etal/alternative rock band Lotprophets. He was arrested last year on suspicion of sexual abuse of multiple children. How did Watkins get to these children? In any cases, their mothers offered them to him to have his way with in exchange for sexual favors. In other words, in order to get some attention from this famous rock star, they gave up their children to be sexually mutilated. Horrific? Yes.

The second exam question is "The process of ‘otherisation’ is central to ‘hate crime’; using empirical examples discuss your understanding of these concepts?"

In this question I am going to start off by explaining what 'otherisation' and 'hate crime' is. My definition will be something to this effect: Otherisation is putting others below yourself, seeing a group of fellow human beings as less worthy than yourself because of some common trait they share, such as ethnic origin, skil colour, sexual orientation and the like. Otherisation is the notion of the 'others', it's fear of the unknown. Otherisation drives a wedge between communities that does not allow the members of each group to communicate and leaves the people of the strongest or biggest group to hate the smaller one, the minority in the situation. This can cause hate crimes that has in many cases, caused the death of a minority member. Hate crime is going so far in the otherisation process that you not only express your feeling of loathing and hatred verbally to members of the group, but your feelings drive you to inflict harm upon members of this group that you see as less worthy than yourself without any provocation apart from the fact that they are a member of the group you despise. 

The empirical example I'm going to use is the case of Stephen Lawrence, the 19 year old black man who were killed in a vicious attack while waiting for the bus on the evening of 22nd april 1993. Five men were arrested at the time, but they were all released. It wasn't until 2012 that two people were convicted of the murder. The report made by Sir William Macpherson following the murder of Lawrence investigated the Metropolitan Police Service and concluded that the police force was institutionally racist, and therefore not making too big an effort to solve the case of Lawrence's death. 

I think I've covered the questions quite good, it is a hand written exam and we only have two hours, so I'll have to cram it all into the space and time we're given, but I think I'll get a pretty good mark on this one. I'm really glad we get the questions ahead of the exam. It means, of course, that the marking will be more strict and that getting a really good mark will be more difficult, but it makes me a hell of a lot less nervous because I know what's ahead. Seeing as the modules I've had exams for are the ones I understand the most, I've really been lucky this year. 

So, wish me luck! 

 

I'm a feminist because...

I never gave feminism much thought until I came to university. Before I moved away from my tiny little Norwegian village of 650 people, I didn't realise how bad it actually is. This is some of the reasons why I'm a feminist. The statistics are found on the internet, of course, and I did get inspiration for this list on the internet as well, but I stand by the things on this list and these are my opinions still.

So here they are, 35 reasons to be a feminist!

  

• I'm a feminist because girls are taught in public schools that when she has sex for the first time, she'll "loose a part of her self."
   
• I'm a feminist because girls are told that the first time they have sex will be very painful and there could be blood involved. (Utter bullshit, by the way)
   
• I'm a feminist because women who has a lot of sex are sluts, while guys are studs.
   
• I'm a feminist because when a woman turns 60 years old, she will have earned $450.000 less than a 60 year old man in the exact same position.
   
• I'm a feminist because of cat calling and street harassment, and no, it's not a bloody compliment!
   
• I'm a feminist because boobs are used to sell everything from burgers to soap, but don't you dare breast feed in public!
   
• I'm a feminist because of how much pressure we put on girls to value their appearance above everything else.
   
• I'm a feminist because 1 in 4 young women are sexually assaulted and society still asks "what was she wearing?"
   
• I'm a feminist because male victims of rape are rarely believed when reporting the crime because "guys want to have sex all the time anyway, right?"
   
• I'm a feminist because in Saudi Arabia, women still can't vote or drive.
   
• I'm a feminist because half the girls in Yemen will become child brides.
   
• I'm a feminist because 65% of Brasilians believe that if a woman is wearing revealing clothes, she deserves to get raped.
   
• I'm a feminist because a woman is raped every 14 seconds in South Africa.
   
• I'm a feminist because every day, in every corner of the world, womens bodies are used as battle grounds in wars started by men.
   
• I'm a feminist because of Amanda Todd, Alicia Garcia, Cherize Morales and the sexism that drew them to end their own lives.
   
• I'm a feminist because in the US in 2013, the political body making desicions over everyone elses bodies were over 80% male.
   
• I'm a feminist because women don't get to decide over their own bodies. In the US, 77% of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of those will never be pregnant.
   
• I'm a feminist because men occupy the top runs of not just politics, but every industry in the world!
   
• I'm a feminist because women only hold 1 in 4 stem jobs. We own 6% of TV stations and 5% of executive positions in the media are held by a woman.
   
• I'm a feminist because people still say that asexuals, bisexuals and transgender people don't exist.
   
• I'm a feminist because in 34 states in the US, it's LEGAL to discriminate against someone who's transgender.
   
• I'm a feminist because the idea of same sex marriage shouldn't be so hard to graps as it obviously are to a lot of people.
   
• I'm a feminist because women are constantly sexualised and objectified while men get credit for their skills and professions.
   
• I'm a feminist because there are parts of this world where women are the ones who gets punished after being sexually assaulted.
   
• I'm a feminist because there are people who actually think it's not rape if the other person is sleeping.
   
• I'm a feminist because we live in a society that teaches women to be careful so they don't get raped instead of teaching men not to rape.
   
• I'm a feminist because the notion that men rape because they are pigs that can't control their urges is utterly disgusting.
   
• I'm a feminist because approximately 3 million girls are victims of female genital mutilation each year.
   
• I'm a feminist because there are approximately 2 million victims of sex trafficking each year. 85% of these are women.
   
• I'm a feminist because in 31 states in the US, if a woman gets pregnant as a result of rape and decides to keep the child, her rapist can sue for custody and visitation rights.
   
• I'm a feminist because women who report sexual harassment in the work place are seen as prudes and career experts advise women not to report it.
   
• I'm a feminist because when I walk home from the library alone at night, I hold my keys so that they stick out between my fingers because I'm scared of being assaulted.
   
• I'm a feminist because I want women like me being represented in movies and films - and not have them regulated as the fat, stupid friend that all the thin girls hang out with because they feel sorry for her.
   
• I'm a feminist because most films fail the Bechdel test, where the only requirements are for two named female characters to talk to each other about something besides sex and
  relationships, if only once.
    
•  I'm a feminist because when Austria won Eurovision this year, there were so unbelieveably many comments on facebook and tweets on twitter about how it's disgusting that Eurovision even let a drag performance on stage. I think the performance and the fact that it won is a massively positive message to send to the thousands and thousands of transgender people who suffer from discrimination and bullying on a regular basis.
    
• I'm a feminist because I believe in gender equality and I know we're not there yet.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and tell me why!

Sleep rape VS assault rape

In the last few days, we've had a discussion going on in the media in Norway about systematicly grading the seriousness of rape cases. As far as I've understood, without having read all the articles about it, but a fair few still, there's been a thought that there should be a grading system in place so that we can label the seriousness of any rape case. Also, again as I've understood, it's been said or hinted about how sleep rape isn't as serious as assault rape, and that's what I'm focusing on right now. These are my thoughts on the matter.

Apparently, sleep rape isn't as serious as assault rape because the victim is likely to have flirted with the perpetrator earlier in the evening. Sleep rapes are usually carried out by someone that knows the victim or that has gone to bed with the victim following a party. Does that make sleep rape okay? If you are woken up by your one night stand shoving his reproductive organ into you using nothing but force, are you supposed to accept it because you flirted with him earlier in the night? Because you slept with him before falling asleep? What if the offender is your boyfriend or husband, is it okay for them to rape you in your sleep because you love them, trust them, because you have a close relationship with them? NO. 

Assault rape is what we recognise as being attacked by a stranger and dragged off into a bush. This is clearly serious cases and also the cases where the perpetrator are most likely to not even be found as a suspect because they are usually not known by the victim. Is it okay? No, and I think we all agree on that.

Now, what's more serious? Sleep rape or assault rape? My opinion is that the two can't be compared. In the case of a sleep rape, the victim can find themselves unable to trust other people afterwards because the assailant was someone they loved and trusted, impairing the victim of the ability to findsomeone they can trust and open up to in the same way again. If the perpetrator was a one night stand, trust issues towards unknown people still applies. In the case of an assault rape, the victim could find themselves frightened to leave the house at night if at all. The chance of physical injury might also be greater as the perpetrator has no relationship to the victim and could be less likely to care if they live or die.

By the way, would you say that being raped while asleep is not assault? Because I certainly would. It's forced intercourse, no matter how you look at it and it's assault either way.

What I'm trying to say is that there's no way to say which is more serious. The seriousness of the offence has to be seen from the victims eyes, The seriousness of the assault comes down to the greatness of the physical and psycological trauma to the victim, not the type of situation in which it was sustained. The seriousness of rape cases can not be labeled from the type of situation, because not everyone handles trauma in the same way. Some handle trauma well and are able to go back to their normal lives faster than others. Each rape case is unique and has to be seen as unique. There can't be any short cuts in dealing with rape cases.

To be perfectly honest, I can't wait to be done with my education so I can deal with these kinds of issues myself. I can't wait to be able to give my opinions as a professional, and believe me, there'll be some opinions out there from yours truly once I've got a degree and a badge, just wait for it!