July was a particularly heavy month for me so I have been absent from the blog. I will now try and make up for lost time during August – it might enable some of my more industriuos colleagues to take a well earned rest!
Throughout this time I have been watching the increasingly authoritarian regime in Iran struggling to justify its abuse of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani – the woman who was sentenced to death by stoning. The regime seems to have accepted that stoning was barbaric but they are still considering a death sentence for adultery! What age are they living in?!
Amnesty International is continuing its campaign on her behalf and the greater the pressure from the rest of the world the better. Many people in Iran do want the rule of law and democracy but this wretched regime then lurches back into mindless dictatorial brutality. Sad to see the seat of a once great civilisation reduced to killing women for having sex outside marriage.
Apart from the human-rights, religious, social, and political issues broached by your blog Lord Soley, there is surely a serious and definite Case, both intra-nationally and inter-nationally, for what I would like to call “Practical Safe Sex Education for Life” ?
Practical sex education should have the following basis:
1. Be launched as a major new Education Institute, with a far greater reach and expertise than the prevailing three main sex-markets, of
(a) prostitution
(b) open-societal cheating-on-an-existing-partner.
(c) lone ‘self-pleasuring’ using masturbation and sex-toys.
The problem with each of those markets is deprivation of guiltless and positively health-ful sexual-development progress, and harmfulnesses due to various kinds of mis-understanding, misuse, and ignorance.
In each of the above three categories there already is a remedy, that can be affordably acquired from the internet marketplace, and that is the medically-recommended sex-education video:
but that too would have much better individual, couple, and classroom effect and safety, if first introduced to the would-be performer(s) by licensed and monitored sex educators/educatrixes.
Whilst the Life-function of sex is procreation (of babies), there is a triple other-function of
(firstly) self-skilling linked
(secondly) to sex-partner co-skilling linked
(thirdly) to social-response-ability.
That sex without priorly imparted conscious-competence from licensed surrogate and educator/educatrix centres and home-bookings is not only demeaning but very potentially damaging or inhibiting has surely been long-enough evident.
There is a real individual-human-development, relationship-development, societal-development, life-education-supportive, and primary-health supportive need for a whole new sub-economic and educational Sector of Safe and Healthy Sex Progress.
Let me now suggest calling these new-educational, and clinicly-distinctly Non-“porn” centres and reach-out services as follows:
“Practical Caring and Safe Sex Education Britain”.
Other countries, whether large and perhaps civilisationally-struggling, or small and perhaps economically-retarded, would surely welcome, if not immediately then in a forthcoming decade, such a lead which Britain could conceivably launch and without doubt establish well within the present five-year parliamentary term ?
Surrounded by sea, and being suitably small also, Britain would be the ideal country to lead the way in such a hugely-neglected, abused, and long overdue civilisational, and educational major health need.
=============
(jsdm0055Th05Aug2010).
I do realise this may be controversial, and I certainly find the prospect of imposing a death penalty for adultery truly abhorrent, but I also wonder if it’s properly any of our business.
If we had been brought up in Iran and subjected to their religious and cultural norms throughout our lives, I am sure we would think differently to the way we do.
I am not at all convinced that globalisation should require us to force our Anglo-American norms on the rest of the planet.
One of our great (?) achievements in Afghanistan, apparently, has been to enable girls to go to school. I have no idea how that plays out with Afghans and their traditional culture, or what magical means we have employed to presumably roughly double their education budget, or whether they will desire this, or be able to afford this, when (if?) we leave. However, within our norms, girls being denied education would of course be unthinkable, so off they currently trot.
Amongst other things I don’t know is what isn’t done because they’re now at school and who, perhaps, has to do it, though I’ve shrewd idea of the latter. Or whether the budget was, in fact, doubled or left as it was, so nobody ends up as educated as at least the boys were before.
I remember a radio programme a year or two back in which an American woman was walking through a market location somewhere where the norm was for women to wear veils. This, she presented as an appalling symbol of male oppression. She, needless to say, wasn’t wearing one.
Now if all the males in Brooklyn, or wherever she hailed from, were to suddenly force all the females there to wear veils, she would have had a very good point.
As it was, some lowly official gave her a clout, much to her fury. And I’m afraid I can only think ‘Good on him!’
An excellent example of the forcing of American cultural norms on the rest of the planet is to be found in the United States’ Trafficking in Persons (TIPS) report, produced in that nation’s self-appointed role as the planetary police. The notion is an excellent one, but why is this not undertaken by the UN with the full involvement of all nations?
Well, this has been a long comment. I, too, hope very much for clemency for Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, though I do wish both Amnesty and the Palace of Westminster would spend more time on the more difficult question of the human rights of sex workers in the UK rather than ostensibly open and shut cases (from a unilateral western perspective) abroad.
Brutal misogyny is incompatible with great civilisations? What history textbooks did you get at school? Or, for that matter, which Bible?
I’m not opposed to the project of gradually extending the advantages of a more liberal and tolerant society outwards from the Western world, but I don’t see that cause is served very well if we forget that this liberalism, rather than their conservative authoritarianism, is a recent aberration on our part. Tut tutting and head shaking and “oh how the mighty have fallen”ing is sort of crazy – we’re the radicals, not them.
This kind of ties in with Baroness Deech`s post on divorce.
Personally I do not believe that adultery should be lowered to a minor misdemeanour. Adultery creates the type of pain and situation that having a loved one murdered causes, I`ve had it wreck my life and that of my daughters. At that time I expect I would have also condoned stoning.
I don`t condone stoning but neither do I condone the death sentence in the USA, by injection or any other means. Nor do I condone the torturous, inhumane imprisonment without trial of the type we see at Guantanamo.
When we talk of barbaric acts of other countries have we the right to judge ? We still imprison Mothers for not having a TV license, punishing the children most of all. We imprison people with little evidence, with hold the right to fair trial is that not taking away their life ? Can we really judge fairly.
The state in Iran is a religious one, it believes and relies on the sanctity of marriage. Perhaps it is more civilised in that it sees the real damage adultery does ? There are some laws in this Country I disagree with and Iknow the consequences of breaking them, is it not my choice ?
After watching last night a programme on speeding and how a 1 year old girl was permanantly disabled to the point where the hospital wanted to turn off life support. The parents refused and now their lives are dedicated 24/7 to a child who has no real future. The carnage, the lasting pain, the cost`s in all ways were weighed up by the system imprisoning the 19 year old driver for just 6 months of a 21 month sentence. I have to ask are we too lenient ?
If we look at the case of China whose human rights the past were horrendous we can see this is changing slowly. It`s not changing because we kept protesting and stating how dispacable they were it`s changing because they became a part of our world. If we look at Northern Ireland, the IRA didn`t suddenly go along with us because we kept telling them how horrible they were. We opened negotiations andmade them part of the system.
If you threaten or act in a hostile, aggressive manner do you really expect to come to agreement ?
There was a time when this Country was equally barbaric and some of this too mayhave been down to religion. Things do not change overnight and they will not change by people jumping up stating your wrong I`m right.
Marriage is a great part of civilisation, it is very meaninful we can see this in the way gay communities have strove to be on equal footing. Let us not matter of factly state that anything that destroys the sanctity of marriage is a trivial misdemeanour.
There are many of us that still believe that punishment should fit the crime, adultery by aman or woman is only a small step away from murder in the damage it causes. It has only been 60 years since we hung a person for stating aloud ” Give it to him”, I refer to Dereck Bentley. It has been far less since we all saw an innocent man taken from his family by the violent actions of a Policeman at a protest causing his death and no justice is given. Let`s not forget the innocent swooped on, jumped on and shot to death on the underground or even Bloody Sunday.
I do not believe rules of law can be seen as barbarity, they are after all part of civilisation. They maybe wrong or severe or completely the reverse but are part of a civilised culture.
One recalls a peaceful ptotest in China during which the Government’s rule-of-law shot dead many mere teenage protesters, and afterwards sent the bill for the bullets to those victims’ parents !
Carl.H must be joking when he tries to assert that such barbarous, severe or wrong “rules of law” are “part of a civilised culture” and, after all, “part of civilisation”.
==========
(JSDM1233W11Aug10).
To be diplomatic: you may not be aware that the Democratic Republic of Iran has a WordPress blog. Perhaps you could make your concerns known there and be better informed for doing so?
The lawyer who fled Iran says in the link below that he had a right to defend Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.
http://droi.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/lawyer-who-fled-iran-insists-i-had-the-right-to-defend-sakineh-mohammadi/
The problem for Iran is that it is still in the grip of a revolution with similarities to that of Chairman Mao Zedong revolution. Iran’s government perceives counter revolutionaries everywhere and as such its revolutionary guard permeates an estimated 75% of the countries infrastructure at all levels including the judiciary.
There are very few revolutionary guards per head of population so informants are key to the governments hold. It’s a very PC society and there are cultural spies everywhere. If you want the liberal niceties of those outside of Iran you can have them but you must do it privately and indoors away from prying eyes.
Perhaps a peeping tom gave the game away or was it a miniature electronic spy camera? In China it is illegal to sell such cameras however there are no restrictions on exporting them.
The ‘droi’ Arabic blog is a good test of Firebox’s ‘Google toolbar’ addin which has a translate button for the linked page. Some of these pages will only work in or with the help of the US as Microsoft Internet Explorer, which is ironic, or should that be iranic?
With reference to the veil or burqa (burkha, burka or burqua) and its use in ultra orthodox Islam I don’t like the burqa because facial expression is part of our open trust system and oral language interpretation.
Having said that our business bank managers have been given over to wearing a ‘burqa’ because they change like the seasons and you never actually get to see one or establish trust over the telephone.
It seems to me that burqa wearers should be registered so that the government can ensure that they meet their obligations for charity under ‘Zakah’ of 2.5% of their gross annual income.
http://www.irfi.org/articles/articles_101_150/charity_in_islam.htm
Should ‘Zakah’ be tax deductible? The problem is that the authorities would have no proof of payment especially if charity began at home. Tax evasion would be another problem; people would deny they were ultra orthodox and take to wearing the veil only indoors.
My comment at 0144 Fri06Aug has been removed and I need to know why.
I think the need for greatly-increased, cleaned-up, and safely-skilful sex-education to be of primary importance and urgency both for longterm worldwide Civilisational strengthening and internal British national human, health and educational development.
Taking Lord Soley’s foci to be
.(1) “the increasingly authoritarian regime struggling to justify its abuse of one if its woman-citizens found guilty of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning, and only after international-outrage protestations reducing that sentence to death by some less barbaric killing-method; and behind that having failed to inform Lord Soley (the rest of the world) what age they are living in”;
.(2) “the greater the pressure from the rest of the world similarly to that of Amnesty International on behalf of that individual woman the better”;
.(3) “that many people in that country want the rule-of-law and democracy, but (are prevented by) the present ‘wretched’ regime that lurches back into dictatorial brutality”;
.(4) “that it is sad to see such a once great civilisation reduced to killing women for ‘having sex outside marriage’ “;
it is plain to my mind that whilst such countries seriously lack both life-education and participatorily-cooperative win-win-win problem-solving knowledge and know-how, other countries also lack those same modern-advancements, and significantly so although in much less extreme and outrightly inhumane measure.
Britain has a great deal of educational knowledge and life know-how to catch up on, and does not need to expose itself not even to one speck of inter-national smut by becoming just another “pot calling the kettle black”.
I therefore made a maturely reasoned case and submitted it in constructive-spirit.
I strongly believe that this case needs to be kept both before the Public eye and on Britain’s, and the World’s, immediate and longterm-strategy governance tables.
Therefore here it is again, with just a few little mprovements:
(“) jsdm
POSTED ON 06/08/2010 AT 01:44 AM |PERMALINK |
Apart from the human-rights, religious, social, and political issues broached by your blog Lord Soley, there is surely a serious and definite Case, both intra-nationally and inter-nationally, for what I would like to call “Practical Safe Sex Education for Life” ?
Practical sex education should have the following basis:
1. Be launched as a major new Education Institute, with a far greater reach and expertise than the prevailing three main sex-markets, of
(a) prostitution
(b) open-societal cheating-on-an-existing-partner.
(c) lone ’self-pleasuring’ using masturbation and sex-toys.
The problem with each of those markets is deprivation of guiltless and positively health-ful sexual-development progress; and harmfulnesses due to various kinds of mis-understanding, misuse, and ignorance.
However, in each of the above three categories there already is a remedy, that can be affordably acquired from the internet marketplace even by British people in the Underclass, and that is the medically-recommended sex-education video:
but that would have much better individual, couple, and classroom effect and safety, if first introduced to would-be performer(s) by trained, licensed and monitored sex educators/educatrixes.
—————–
Whilst the Life-function of sex is procreation (of babies), there is a triple other-function of
(firstly) self-skilling linked
(secondly) to sex-partner co-skilling linked
(thirdly) to social-response-ability.
That sex without priorly imparted conscious-competence, from for instance licensed surrogate and educator/educatrix centres and home-bookings, is not only demeaning but very potentially damaging and inhibiting has surely been long-enough evident.
There is a real individual-human-development, relationship-development, societal-development, life-education-supportive, and primary-health supportive need for a whole new sub-economic and educational Sector of Safe and Healthy Sex Progress.
Let me now insist that these new educational sex centres and reach-out services be kept clinicly and distinctly separate from all ”Porn”, and as professional as the home-visit of the doctor.
Let me also suggest a starting-point Britain-wide name for them:
“The UK Safe and Caring Practical Sex Education Movement”.
———————-
Other countries, whether large and perhaps civilisationally-struggling, or small and perhaps economically-retarded, would surely welcome, if not immediately then in a forthcoming decade, such a lead which Britain could conceivably launch and without doubt establish well within the present five-year parliamentary term ?
Surrounded by sea, and being suitably small also, Britain would be the ideal country to lead the way in such a hugely-neglected, abused, and long overdue civilisational, and educational major health need.
================
(JohnSydneyDentonMiles; 2nd edition 2355F06Aug2010).
A lot of thoughtful debate with some unusual angles.
I think the only point I want to make in response is that we should not yield to the dangerous idea that there is no difference between an authoritarian regime struggling to maintain power by suppressing large sections of their society and more liberal and free societies.
Human rights are important. This is not just a western concept. The reason I mentioned the once great Persian civilization is precisely because there was a period when they were more liberal than now. The same process could happen here if we allow the ideas of liberty to decline in the West – so I want progressives on my side just in case!
Lord Soley’s warning for us is very sound political and citizenship advice.
It rests on the simple mind-skills of Logic: namely to differentiate between an unstable, authoritarian, oppressive regime on the one hand, and a liberal, free regime (society) on the other; this being in order that we should not yield to the falsity that there is no ideological-difference between these two actually very contrasting governances (and their consequent societies).
In other words, first we need to become workably-competent in Logic i.e. in (1) comprehensive fact-assembly (2) formal-argumentation and (3) moral-reasoning; and be supportively familiar wth the History of Thinking Skills.
Especially of practical benefit thereto are applications of modern-world Thinking advances such as
(1) “Six Thinking Hats” by de Bono;
(2) “Mindset” by Dweck;
(3) “Perceptual Control Theory” by Powers (qua “self-control” as contrastingly distinct from “control-of-others”; and internally built “perceptual self-control” as the more efficient and effective replacement for the now already waning externally-imposed “Reinforcement” and “Super-Rewards” education , workplace, and societal-hierarchy theories, which now becoming are increasingly obsolescent).
(4) “Leader Effectiveness Training” by Gordon; the workplace-skill and life-place ability of friendly participatorily-cooperative win-win-win needs, hows, and affordable-costs recognition and problem-solving; and
(5) “Inductive and Practical Reasoning” by Girle, Halpern, Miller, & Williams; chapters 7 and 8 make a strong foundation both for Argumentational-Truth & Validity and for honest Debating skills. (For instance, any argument which has suppressed or unstated premises is called an Enthymeme and should be immediately rejected).
This “bad-government” versus “good government” argument as used by the bad-government itself, its exploiters, or cronies, having omitted at least one true and relevant premise is no longer an argument, nor can it have any true conclusion. It is both enthymemous(false) and invalid.
“Inductive and Practical Reasoning” was first published in Australia 1978; and it still contains first-class, “ageless” mind-function lessons.
(I have today ordered three modern texts on Logic, Fallacies, and “flawed-economics”, which may also turn out to be commendable in due course).
=============
(JSDM1955M09Aug2010).
I probably agree almost inclusively with Clive on the subject of human rights, but
“The regime seems to have accepted that stoning was barbaric but they are still considering a death sentence for adultery! What age are they living in?!”
I do often wonder whether the more civilized world is just a little more subtle and no less brutal; brutal in its administration of
drugs which make the lives of many a living death in any case.
Brutal in its inability to control illegal drug dealing in such a way that the unwanted and unloved, are dead by the time they are 25 or 30.
We seem to complain about Iran because it is a very uncivilized, ancient civilization, which does not bow to Anglo-American perceptions of what is right or wrong.
In our world perhaps that woman would have been sectioned under the mental health and given a lobotomy in due course, none of us any the wiser.
I call that brutal. Stoning is cheaper.
Yes Barbarity, Lord Soley,is not subtle.
Lawful removal of parts of the human brain to provide a living death is so, I suppose.
If we had statistics for the number of lobotomies per 10,000 sectioned mental patients in each country, the UK and Iran, we might have an axe to grind, or a brain surgeon’s knife to wield, against them, for
such a public performance of Stoning in the modern world.
Is that the main gist of Lord Soley’s complaint?
Yes Barbarity, Lord Soley,is not subtle.
Lawful removal of parts of the human brain to provide a living death is so, I suppose.
If we had statistics for the number of lobotomies per 10,000 sectioned mental patients in each country, the UK and Iran, we might have an axe to grind, or a brain surgeon’s knife to wield, against them, for
such a public performance of Stoning in the modern world.
Is that the main gist of Lord Soley’s complaint?
From previous discussion also it should be remembered that stoning generally takes place in those parts of the country known as Pashto/tun, those people whose terrain overlap between Pakistan /Afgh/Iran who are the very people condemned for having what are known as honour killings.
One of the problems of Universal human rights
is that there are bound to some whose morals
do not comply with certain aspects of the Declaration and Law. The Pashtun are such people; Iran is designated as their ‘nation state’ in the modern world, but tribally they are in a world of their own, and they will defend tribe unto the end.
They comprise most of the Taliban too, so accepting the credence of news reports of honour killings and stoning takes some doing as well.
The last stoning I read about in detail, gave every impression of being a story invented by the Western press, by a gullible western readership, keen to be deceived.