SACW - 29 Dec 2017 | Afghanistan: football pioneer Khalida Popal ; attacks on Shiites / Sri Lanka: FGM / Nepal Elections / Bangladesh: Lucy Halt / India and Pakistan - Elusive Peace / India: Rajsmand / Pushkin's pride

Thu Dec 28 16:15:33 EST 2017

South Asia Citizens Wire - 29 Dec 2017 - No. 2966 
[via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996]

Contents:
1. In Pakistan, promoting peace with India can be bad for your health — and freedom | Beena Sarwar
2. War Not Peace: The Media of India and Pakistan | Seema Mustafa
3. India - Rajasthan: Rajsmand - Ghastly Crime, Gruesome Hate | Ram Puniyani
4. India: Cartoons on War hysteria and Hyper-Nationalism
5. India: Challenging Communalism, Challenging History – The Work of Romila Thapar | Neeladri Bhattacharya
6. Recent on Communalism Watch:
 - India: Anant Hegde’s comment on the Constitution was designed to provoke and earn political brownie points | Editorial, Hindustan Times
 - India: The Babri Masjid Demolition Case: The Will to Delay and Deflect | V. Venkatesan and Vidya Subrahmaniam
 - India: This Ghaziabad father defied BJP leaders to ensure his daughter's marriage to a Muslim man | Shoaib Daniyal
 - India: Muslims indispensable for the Hindutva project | Saeed Naqvi
 - Bangladesh: The case for a uniform civil code | Umran Chowdhury
 - India: Sardar Patel on the RSS ...
 - India: Vishwa Hindu Parishad men, accompanied by police, disrupt Christmas celebrations in Rajasthan’s Pratapgarh | Dhairya Maheshwari
 - India: Forthcoming Elections, Electoral Alliances and the Left
::: URLs & FULL TEXT :::
7. Why is 'Islamic State' targeting Shiites in Afghanistan?
8. Communist coalition concludes Nepal’s political transition | Sujeev Shakya
9. Taliban, death threats and not giving up: Afghanistan's football pioneer Khalida Popal tells her harrowing yet heroic tale
10. Albert Pinto and Salim Mirza are in a bind |Jawed Naqvi
11. FGM in Sri Lanka: It's never 'just a nick' | Zainab Ibrahim & Ermiza Tegal
12. Lucy Halt, a forgotten friend of Bangladesh | Anisur Rahman Swapan
13. Embrace failure and shoot for the moon — play tech cliché bingo with us | John Thornhill
14. USA - Obituaries: Janet Benshoof, Women’s Champion on a Global Scale, Dies at 70 | Richard Sandomir 
14.1 Alka Pradhan v. Gitmo
15. Pushkin's pride: how the Russian literary giant paid tribute to his African ancestry | Jonathan McAloon

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1. IN PAKISTAN, PROMOTING PEACE WITH INDIA CAN BE BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH — AND FREEDOM | Beena Sarwar
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Shahzadi and Khan symbolize how peace has been mainstreamed beyond intellectual circles.
http://www.sacw.net/article13596.html

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2. WAR NOT PEACE: THE MEDIA OF INDIA AND PAKISTAN | Seema Mustafa
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NEW DELHI: Till not so long ago there was a barometer of India-Pakistan relations in a Nawaiwaqt (Pakistan newspaper) correspondent whose confidence ebbed or rose accordingly. Visiting Indian journalists learnt to gauge the mood in Islamabad through this gentleman who always, repeated always, asked questions of Indian dignitaries in a tone that gave away the mood. He was politer when relations were good, very confrontationist when New Delhi and Islamabad were  (...)
http://www.sacw.net/article13594.html

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3. INDIA - RAJASTHAN: RAJSMAND - GHASTLY CRIME, GRUESOME HATE | Ram Puniyani
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The ghastly incident in Rajsamand, Rajasthan, (December 6) showed the impact which ‘Hate other’ can create. On December 6th, Shambhulal Regar, an ex-marble trader hacked to death a Muslim worker Afrazul Khan. Afrazul, a laborer, was called by Shambhu on the pretext of giving him some work. Many immigrants like him from West Bengal have been staying in Rajsamand working on construction of roads and other sundry occupations. The horrific part of the incident was that  (...)
http://www.sacw.net/article13595.html

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4. INDIA: CARTOONS ON WAR HYSTERIA AND HYPER-NATIONALISM
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http://www.sacw.net/article12982.html

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5. INDIA: CHALLENGING COMMUNALISM, CHALLENGING HISTORY – THE WORK OF ROMILA THAPAR | Neeladri Bhattacharya
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The years after Independence saw a paradigm shift in history writing in India. Inspired by the ideals of nationalism, and the vision of a secular and democratic society, a generation of young historians set out to write a new kind of history. Historians, it was felt, had a role to play in the constitution of a new national imaginary, in fashioning the citizen subjects of the new nation state.
http://www.sacw.net/article13593.html

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6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH:
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 - India: Anant Hegde’s comment on the Constitution was designed to provoke and earn political brownie points | Editorial, Hindustan Times
 - India: The Babri Masjid Demolition Case: The Will to Delay and Deflect | V. Venkatesan and Vidya Subrahmaniam
 - India: This Ghaziabad father defied BJP leaders to ensure his daughter's marriage to a Muslim man | Shoaib Daniyal
 - India: Muslims indispensable for the Hindutva project | Saeed Naqvi
 - Bangladesh: The case for a uniform civil code | Umran Chowdhury
 - India: Sardar Patel on the RSS ...
 - India: Vishwa Hindu Parishad men, accompanied by police, disrupt Christmas celebrations in Rajasthan’s Pratapgarh | Dhairya Maheshwari
 - India: Forthcoming Elections, Electoral Alliances and the Left

 -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/

::: URLs & FULL TEXT :::

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7. WHY IS 'ISLAMIC STATE' TARGETING SHIITES IN AFGHANISTAN?
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"Islamic State" has once again chosen to target Shiites in its latest Kabul bombings that killed at least 40 people. Experts say the group is trying to create sectarian rifts in the country and use them to its advantage. [ . . . ]
https://tinyurl.com/ybkvknm8

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8. COMMUNIST COALITION CONCLUDES NEPAL’S POLITICAL TRANSITION | Sujeev Shakya
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(East Asia Forum, 28 December 2017)

Author: Sujeev Shakya, Nepal Economic Forum

The completion of federal and provincial elections in December 2017 marks the end of an almost 12-year political transition and the beginning of a new economic future for Nepal.

A man searches for his name on the voters list near a polling station during the parliamentary and provincial elections in Bhaktapur, Nepal, 7 December 2017 (Photo: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar).

In June 2017, when the World Economic Forum reported that Nepal was the third-fastest growing economy in the world after Ethiopia and Uzbekistan, international media outlets did not know how to react. For the first time in recent memory, Nepal was in the news for positive reasons. A 7.5 per cent economic growth rate verified by the World Bank, the IMF and the Asian Development Bank prompted global investors to pause and reconsider their impression of Nepal.

Local elections were held this year for the first time in over two decades, and along with the federal and provincial elections, the political transition came to an end and turned the hopes of countless Nepalese voters into reality. Ironically, their hopes were answered by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba — the same politician who dissolved local bodies in 2002 and throttled Nepal’s decentralisation journey when he previously served as prime minister.

In Nepal, local bodies are important for two reasons. First, they cannot be impeached for the next five years, which grants political stability. Second, they create opportunities in local economies and thereby decongest the capital Kathmandu, which is currently seen as the country’s only source of economic opportunities.

Federal politics also saw major developments this past year.

In October 2017, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) (CPN-UML) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) — the two largest communist forces in the country — decided to form an alliance for the federal and provincial elections. This move came as a surprise to the Nepali Congress (the oldest political party in Nepal which was the largest party in the dissolved parliament) as well as India, which continues to have tremendous strategic interest in Nepali politics. The alliance brought together two parties with strong grassroots organisational structures and paved the way for their historic win: they secured 116 seats out of the 165 directly elected representative seats and 58 out of the 110 proportional representation seats. If the parties actually unite in early 2018, to which the leaders of both parties have committed, they will hold 176 of the 275 parliamentary seats. This will give them a nearly two-thirds majority in the parliament.

The Nepali Congress, which is the leader of the current coalition government, will be in opposition with just 63 seats. Despite receiving the same number of votes as CPN-UML, Nepali voters rejected the Nepali Congress leaders that were contesting the elections.

This loss has been attributed to several problems. First, the negative image of Sher Bahadur Deuba as party leader and prime ministerial candidate eroded public trust. Second, the old guard who have been ‘holding fort’ for nearly 30 years are reluctant to give way to a new generation of party leaders who may be better received by voters. Third, citizens were fed up with infighting in the Nepali Congress. Fourth, the Nepali Congress was seen to be hostage to Indian meddling in Nepali politics. Notably, the party’s failure to oppose the 2015 Indian blockade was unforgivable to many Nepalis. The final nail in the coffin was the party’s list of candidates, which put forward tainted criminals and business people with dubious credibility.

So what made the Left Alliance of the communist parties preferable? First, they peddled nationalism — which in Nepal means being anti-India — and voters saw CPN-UML leader and former prime minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli as someone who could stand up against India as a result of his actions during India’s blockade. Second, the alliance made stability and development their key message. For example, they took credit for Nepal’s miraculous transition from daily eighteen-hour power cuts to no power cuts. Third, knowing that the Nepali Congress was at the weakest point in its history, the CPN-UML went into this year’s election all guns blazing. The CPN-UML particularly targeted incumbent Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and convinced voters in many far-flung areas that the Nepali Congress was the key reason for Nepal’s underdevelopment.

Following the end of political transition, Nepal’s economy and development is the next key policy agenda. This year’s elections were fought and won on development policy, as Nepal concentrates on graduating from least-developed country to a middle income country.

As a new government takes over in the beginning of 2018, there are three key factors to look out for in Nepal’s development. First, what will be the Left Alliance’s foreign policy? In particular, how will the Nepali Prime Minister-designate work with an India that does not favour it, and how will Nepal respond to China’s Belt and Road Initiative? Second, will the Left Alliance move away from the crony capitalism and inward-focused nationalism it has practiced and instead push reforms that drive investment and growth? Finally, will the Left Alliance stay united as promised or will political fault lines fracture the coalition and push Nepal back into transition?

Sujeev Shakya is Chair of the Nepal Economic Forum and author of Unleashing Nepal.

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9. TALIBAN, DEATH THREATS AND NOT GIVING UP: AFGHANISTAN'S FOOTBALL PIONEER KHALIDA POPAL TELLS HER HARROWING YET HEROIC TALE
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(The Independent [UK], 28 December 2017)

Exclusive interview: In 2011, the Afghan women's captain was forced to flee her own country in fear for her life. Today she is a global icon. This is her story 

by Luke Brown
    @lukedbrown

Khalida Popal risked everything to play the sport that she loves

In April 2011, Khalida Popal thought she was going to die. “I was facing regular death threats from the Taliban, and I knew that if I stayed in Afghanistan my life would have been in real danger,” she says softly. “I had a choice — I could either stay in my own country and face the consequences, or leave and continue working towards my goal. And I didn’t want to die.”

It is a beautiful winter’s day in Monte Carlo and, as she recounts the darkest moments of her life, hotel guests mingle happily, sipping cocktails ordered from an expensive menu. When Popal first took to the football pitch — long before rising to become the captain of the Afghanistan national women’s team — she could never have imagined that she would end up here.

Now, Popal lives in Denmark having sought asylum in the country, and travels the world speaking out on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves. But she began playing football in silence.

In the city of Kabul, she and her friends would play in a secluded yard in the shadow of their school, careful to keep the noise to a minimum. The Taliban began growing in influence during Popal’s early years, spreading an ultra-conservative ideology that heavily restricted individual freedoms. It was not long before women were banned from participating in sport or attending stadiums altogether.

“I started to play football simply because it was fun,” Popal recounts. “But it was not long before it became a lot more serious than that. They said that it was not good for me to play football and that it dishonoured me.”

The forbidden kickabouts grew in number as more girls joined in and, encouraged by their swelling numbers, Popal and her friends defiantly took to the public playing fields. But although the Taliban occupation of Afghanistan officially ended in 2001, the hardline mentality of the group remained. Large swathes of the community turned on the girls, throwing stones at them as they played and declaring them “prostitutes” simply for playing the sport they loved.

“Afghanistan is a very traditional country,” Popal explains. “It’s a very closed country when it comes to women and honour killings are common. But it’s not just the Taliban, it is the Taliban mentality which is still common in society to this day.

    Every single time that I kicked the ball it felt like a victory for all of the women who had died

Khalida Popal

“There are people going to work in smart suits who look like gentlemen, but in reality their mentality is so, so against women. And unfortunately these types of people do not want to support our rights. What is even worse is that this Taliban mentality still exists among some people in the government, too, and they are creating a lot of problems for women, and making it difficult for them to develop or to function in society.”

Despite the adversity they faced, Popal and her friends did find a handful of allies and the local NATO base allowed them to train at their compound — so long as they scarpered whenever a helicopter needed to land. In 2007 the national women’s football was formed, with their first ever match against an International Security Assistance Forces XI. They won 5-0.

Yet even the fledgling team’s achievements were interwoven with tragedy. The landmark fixture took place at the Ghazi Stadium, where Taliban officials had previously carried out stonings, amputations and executions in accordance with Sharia law. Locals whispered that so much blood had soaked deep into the turf that the grass would no longer grow.

“Whenever I kicked the ball there I could not stop my mind from racing and imagining,” Popal says. “I had seen photos and videos of what had happened there before. I knew that this was the place for public executions and that so many women had died on this very field. And I knew that those things had happened in exactly the place where I was now kicking a football.”

She pauses briefly. “But also, every single time that I kicked the ball it felt like a victory for all of the women who had died, and all of the women who had been unable to stand up for their rights. Who had been made victims for no reason. So breaking the barrier of playing there was very important and we were all proud to make history.”

International matches against the likes of Nepal, Pakistan and the Maldives followed. But her success came at a price. The death threats intensified, with Popal’s family also made to fear for their safety, and a vicious smear campaign was launched to discredit her. Eventually, Popal felt she had no choice but to quietly flee the nation she had fought so hard to represent.

“When I started playing football, or even when I made the decision to begin taking football more seriously, I truly never thought that one day it would lead to me leaving. I went as far as I could but in the end I felt I no longer had enough support to remain there.

“People threatened my life and I did not want to die, because I knew if I did then generations of women after me would live with this fear. And I did want this to stop them from playing football. So I chose to leave the country and live, and still continue fighting for my own gender.”

Popal addressing a conference in London (Getty)

Weeks on the road followed. Without a visa, Popal nervously edged her way across Pakistan, before going underground in India. Eventually she managed to make her way to an asylum centre in Norway and from there she crossed into Denmark, where she waited at another centre for months, depressed and alone.

Popal needed to draw on every ounce of her inner strength to persevere. “I’m the sort of person who hates to give up,” she says resolutely, as if the past 20-minutes of conversation have left this statement in any doubt. “And I never want to see myself weak — no matter what happens I hate to see myself weak. I’m afraid to be weak and I’m afraid of what it feels like to give up.”

But there was a time when she almost did. A life-affirming opportunity to play for a local team turned sour when, having not long dusted off her boots, Popal suffered a serious knee injury which ended her career. She had risked everything for football, only for the sport to let her down when she needed it the most.
popal-fifa.jpg
Popal during the FIFA Annual Conference for Equality & Inclusion, in Zurich (Getty)

“I arrived in Denmark struggling to adjust to an entirely different culture and language, and had no friends, no network, nothing. And then I suffered my injury, with my knee totally damaged, and I was told I could not continue playing football. So it was a time when I did seriously think about all the things that had happened to me, and I came close to giving up.”

    The thing I love more than anything is women supporting women

Khalida Popal

Fortunately, she didn’t. “I said no,” she adds. “I knew that there had to be something else. There had to be a Plan B, something that would allow me to continue working towards my dream. And I realised that it was okay if I couldn’t play football, I could still support other women who can play, and who dream of having the kind of opportunities and support that I never had.”

Although there is no longer any chance of her adding to her 20-appearances for the national team, Popal remains a key figure in Afghan women’s football and currently serves as their Programme Director. She has also established her own organisation — Girl Power — which works to promote sports participation among minority groups, as well as co-operating with Uefa and Fifa.

And last year she worked closely with Hummel, helping the Danish sportswear company to design a lightweight sports hijab, to increase the opportunities of the women who chose to wear one. Popal hopes it will encourage even more Muslim women to become engaged in the sport.

“When I started working with Hummel it was at the request of some of the Afghan players, because some of our players want to wear the hijab when they play and for some it is the only way their families will allow them to play.

“The project has obviously been quite complicated and political at times, but the idea behind it is very simple: how do we give more opportunities to young women in Afghanistan and everywhere? How can we encourage them out from their homes? We wanted to provide support for women to make their own choices with something they would feel comfortable wearing and we wanted to show that football is not against religion or culture. It is just about having fun, enjoying the game and enjoying being together.”

The hotel has fallen quiet and it is beginning to get dark outside: Popal has an awards ceremony to attend. Peace and Sport have named her their Champion of the Year, a prestigious award which recognises the extraordinary effort she has made towards peaceful change in the world. She is a global inspiration — and yet hopes that soon her example will not need to be followed.

“It really is my dream that, at some point in the future, there will be nobody like me,” she smiles, as she heads towards the door. “I hope that there will not be a person who has been left totally alone, all by herself. The thing I love more than anything is women supporting women and that is what I want to happen in the future.”

Khalida Popal was talking at the Peace and Sport Forum. For more information click here.

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10. ALBERT PINTO AND SALIM MIRZA ARE IN A BIND |Jawed Naqvi
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(Dawn, December 26, 2017)

IN the backdrop of Rekhta, an annual Urdu event in Delhi, I was searching for In Custody, Shashi Kapoor’s lyrical epitaph about the demise of a beautiful language. It was to be his last movie.

What I picked up also were two completely unrelated films, which I think the late actor-director would have approved. Saeed Mirza’s Albert Pinto Ko Ghussa Kyun Ata Hai (what riles Albert Pinto) and M.S. Sathyu’s Garam Hawa (scorching winds) showed up in a totally changed political context. Both movies were made by leftist partisans with plots that showed self-absorbed Christian and Muslim families spurred by their circumstances to veer towards the social mainstream of red banners and revolutionary slogans.

In Garam Hawa, released in 1973, Salim Mirza is a follower of Gandhiji during the turbulent days of Partition. Let down by his own brother who migrates to Pakistan, Mirza suffers the ignominy of being a Muslim who stayed back in communally riven Agra. He is traumtatised when someone hits him with a brick after his tonga wades into a hostile Hindu neighbourhood. Banks refuse to give loans for his suffering shoe factory, reminding him that Muslim entrepreneurs had gone away with large sums they had borrowed.

The last straw was perhaps the most heartbreaking. Salim Mirza, played by the inimitable Balraj Sahani, is arrested on familiar charges of spying for Pakistan. He had apparently sought a local map detailing his own haveli to settle a family dispute, which went against him. (Kashmiri journalist Iftikhar Gilani was jailed by the BJP government in 2001 for several months for apparently having some similarly useless maps on his computer, and he wrote a fine book on his ordeal.)

    The left is confused about how to describe the hateful politics unleashed on unsuspecting Indians.

Released from the humiliating lockup, his hopes drained, Salim boards a tonga with his wife and son, played memorably by Farooq Sheikh. On the way to the train station from where they would leave for Pakistan, the tonga encounters a traffic jam. There’s a massive crowd of slogan-chanting men, waving red banners of protest, demanding jobs and colleges. The son is allowed to slip into the crowd, and soon Salim Mirza, muttering “how long can one live alone” hands the house keys to his wife and asks the tonga-driver to take her back to their home. He then wades into the slogan-shouting crowd.

Albert Pinto (1980) is played by Naseeruddin Shah. It’s the story of a Bombay car mechanic, a Christian youth who is proud of his work, who flaunts his first name-calling relationship with rich clients who admire his fine knowledge of their cars. Albert’s father is a trade union leader who cuts a sorry figure with his family as they think he is foolish to alienate powerful mill owners. When his father returns home one day with his shirt torn from an assault by the mill owner’s henchmen, Albert Pinto wakes up to the harsh reality, and he understands the meaning of his father’s love of waving the trade union flag.

Salim Mirza and his son Sikander came to the sanctuary of the robust Indian left to rid themselves of a spurious communal binary. Albert Pinto comes to the left through a secular, economically rooted compulsion.

Both films flagged the promise of a Nehruvian India, where mainstream society was still thought to be striving for a socially equitable future, where religious identity was discouraged.

Cut to the Modi era. The left is confused about how to describe the hateful politics unleashed on unsuspecting Indians. Is he a fascist, or is he a bad ruler lacking in civic sense? The left that wooed Salim Mirza to the crowds and nudged Albert Pinto to join the mainstream has all but disappeared from the scene.

The diagnosis for Pinto is not good. Earlier this month, dozens of Catholics were arrested by police in central India while singing Christmas carols. The familiar charge was they were trying to convert people. A leading Catholic association condemned the accusations as “laughable”. Imagine Pinto’s plight.

When a group of priests went to the police station to ask about the detentions, their parked car was torched, by a mob belonging to a right-wing Hindu group. Theodore Mascarenhas, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, has the facts to vindicate his people’s innocence. He, however, knows the community is on the back foot. Liberal Hindu supporters have been posting encouraging messages of solidarity, but the ground reality will not change.

Tutored allegations have come that the group of Christians — which included a professor from a theology college — had previously asked people to ‘worship Jesus Christ’ and even offered cash to convert. 

The news comes as Pinto’s community sounds the alarm over a recent rise in attacks on churches and members of the faith.

As for Salim Mirza, after the recent murders in the name of gau raksha, he now sees killing of his people as the new normal. The horrific video of a Rajasthan man hacking with an axe, then pouring kerosene on another man, a Muslim worker native to Malda in West Bengal, is not just a clip shot in the sly by a bystander, but is about someone acting it out for the camera.

The left will come to the rescue, Sathyu’s Salim Mirza had hoped. What he finds today is that the supposedly secular Congress party, led by a great grandson of Nehru, seems embarrassed to be seen with Muslim leaders in Gujarat lest the election is lost for an unwitting reason. Salim Mirza is in a soup. But what about his brother who went over to Pakistan? How would he be coping with the upsurge of Deobandi and Barelvi identities? Perhaps it is time for Sathyu and Saeed Mirza to update their scripts — or write an honest, heartrending epitaph as Shashi Kapoor did.

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11. FGM IN SRI LANKA: IT'S NEVER 'JUST A NICK' | Zainab Ibrahim & Ermiza Tegal
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(Al Jazeera - 25 Dec 2017)

FGM is practiced by a number of Muslim communities in Sri Lanka [Louise Gubb/Getty Images]

For decades, female genital mutilation (FGM) has been practiced in Sri Lanka. However, to those outside the practicing communities, this information elicits shock and disbelief. Secrecy about FGM in Sri Lanka is both imposed and internalised. Women who have experienced FGM strongly fear retaliation for speaking out. There is a lack of freedom to discuss, question and explore alternative views within practicing communities.

In December 2017 a news story broke the public silence on FGM, opening a contentious debate. Spokespersons for some sections of the Muslim communities in Sri Lanka confirmed the practice of cutting but have taken pains to make a distinction between FGM and "female circumcision". They argue that what happens in Sri Lanka is "just a nick" of a girl's clitoris that does not constitute mutilation. This distinction is not recognised by the World Health Organisation ; the types of FGM it classifies include forms described as "just a nick".

Based on personal testimonies of women, our work shows that FGM is practiced within the Moor, Malay and Dawoodi Bohra ethnic communities in Sri Lanka. 

The practice appears to vary regionally, and there are clerics who denounce FGM, those who promote it, and also those that say it is mandatory. This means there are also sections of the communities abandoning the practice, with some reporting that FGM is diminishing with each generation and could possibly die out. Some women are opting to not get it done to their daughters or pretend to have it done to save face within their families and communities. 

The form and conditions under which the genital cutting happens are varied. Moor and Malay women speak of a practice done at 40 days after birth by an "Osthi mami", a medically untrained woman who carries out the "ritual". Shaving blades are used and there is no mention of sterilisation. What exactly is nicked and how deep the nick is is left to the untrained "Osthi mami" to decide. Blood is drawn and sometimes ash is sprinkled on the wound.

Dawoodi Bohra women describe experiencing cutting at age seven, usually by medical professionals. Some have recounted traumatic memories of the procedure, of being pinned down on tables, feeling pain between their legs and feeling pain when passing urine for days after.

Some mothers have expressed regret with hindsight at having done this to their children. For others, it has strained their relationships with parents. A 27 year-old Sri Lankan woman who got herself medically examined as an adult, found part of her clitoris and labia had been cut when she was a child. Another woman testified to experiencing pain during sexual intercourse as an adult, due to nerves being exposed when she was cut as a child.

There is no established medical benefit, even of hygiene, that justifies the cutting of the clitoris or  labia of young girls.

Proponents of FGM claim the WHO has not studied local practices, arguing that the local form of the practice somehow does not cause harm and, on the contrary, is beneficial - an argument for which no medical evidence has been presented.

It is hard to deny that the "local practice" involves interfering with the genitalia of a child who is unable to give informed consent. The clitoris matures to have a high concentration of nerve endings in a small piece of flesh. Given this, even if the clitoris is only minimally or accidentally injured, scar tissue develops and it can affect the ability of the woman to experience pleasure normally.

That FGM is done to control a woman's sexuality is well documented and echoes the narratives of Sri Lankan women we have spoken to between the ages of 25 and 60. These women have bravely testified to the lasting harm and trauma caused by their childhood experiences of being cut, despite great fear about the social and personal consequences of doing so.   

Supporters of FGM have been loud and vehement. They are community gatekeepers who hold power and authority and are often male. Their insistence on the cultural practice is an attempt to trump the voices of women saying they have been hurt and don't want it done to any other child. There are also women who say the cutting has not affected them.

The latest argument of some proponents of FGM has been to say that the practice as described in the recently publicised excerpts of testimonies is not in line with the cultural practice they promote, and should in fact be "done properly". Their attempt to medicalise or regulate the practice would not undo the physical and psychological harm done to girls and women. 

FGM proponents' debates on the methods and extent of cutting also distracts from the central fact that the practice of FGM is a violation of the rights of a child as protected by national and international law. The Muslim clerics in Sri Lanka who denounce the practice of cutting also highlight the issue of protection of children, along with their calls to respect the perfection of God's creation. 

Women have started to speak up on the issue and have approached state authorities to lobby them to take action. FGM is a public health issue, but it is also a child abuse issue. Sri Lanka's Penal code criminalises any form of "grievous hurt" and genital cutting clearly falls within that definition. However, the women affected are calling for FGM to be recognised as a specific criminal offence. This will address the reluctance of law enforcement officials to take action on what they see as a private matter for families or a "cultural practice" of a specific community.

The pushback to women's advocacy raises important questions about whose voices we privilege in debates around cultural practices and women's bodies. While debate is a healthy process of exchange of information and views, vilification of and threats against women who raise the issue of FGM are simply attempts to silence them and must be condemned.

Women are reaching out for state protection because the problem of FGM is not an issue they are able to resolve within the community due to the overwhelming resistance from powerful interests that do not recognise their suffering. Banning FGM could help women resist harm to their daughters and protect the reproductive and sexual health of the future generations of women in Sri Lanka.

The views expressed in this article are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

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12. LUCY HALT, A FORGOTTEN FRIEND OF BANGLADESH | Anisur Rahman Swapan
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(Dhaka Tribune, December 26, 2017)

Lucy Helen Francis Halt came to then East Pakistan in 1950, aged just 20, and stayed back due to her love for the people of this region

Dhaka Tribune
Lucy Helen Francis Halt was honored along with 39 other freedom fighters at a ceremony marking the Victory Day by Barisal Metropolitan Police this year.

Soon after the birth of Bangladesh, people came to know about the heroic and sometimes risky stand taken by foreigners who defied threats from Pakistani forces.

These brave individuals wholeheartedly supported the people of Bangladesh and extended their help to the freedom fighters and people who needed medicine, food and shelter during the Liberation War of 1971.

But what about a British national who had no previous interaction with people from Bangladesh before? Would such an individual risk her own life to support the people of a country she hardly knew? Most of the time, the likely answer will be in the negative. But for Lucy Halt from the UK, this was not the case.

Lucy Helen Francis Halt was honored along with 39 other freedom fighters at a ceremony marking the 47th occasion of Victory Day by Barisal Metropolitan Police.

She came to then East Pakistan in 1950, aged just 20, and stayed back due to her love for the people.

Also Read- Oxford Mission Church: The 114-year-old spectacular red beauty of Barisal

During the Liberation War, she worked in Jessore’s Fatema Hospital to treat injured freedom fighters and the common people. Through her letters which she sent to her mother and sister back home, she informed them about the atrocities carried out by the Pakistani army during the war and tried to gather public sympathy for the people of Bangladesh. She also resisted pressure from her family and friends to go back to the UK. In her letters, she also praised Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his wife.

Lucy Halt was honored along with 39 other freedom fighters at a ceremony marking the 47th occasion of Victory Day by Barisal Metropolitan Police Dhaka Tribune

She is still in possession of a letter signed by Sheikh Rehana dated August 20, 1973. Lucy did not show the letters which she had in her possession to anyone for 47 years.

Her contributions were not recorded officially anywhere. She did not get any award for her efforts either.

However, she is facing difficulties to spend Tk38,000 annually to renew her visa.

Former deputy commissioner of Barisal Dr Gazi Md Saifuzzaman gave her assurance of solving the visa renewal issue, but no known steps have been taken in this regard as yet.

She is carrying out her humanitarian activities throughout the country and hopes to breathe her last here.

Talking about Lucy’s Bangladeshi citizenship, District Commissioner Md Habibur Rahman told this correspondent that Bangladesh and Britain have an agreement regarding dual citizenship. He too gave assurance to look into the matter.

Many newspapers have written about her and a lot of organizations have wanted to honor her contributions. Unfortunately, no steps have been taken to resolve the issue of Lucy getting citizenship of Bangladesh or waiving Tk38,000 she has to spend for visa renewal.

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13. EMBRACE FAILURE AND SHOOT FOR THE MOON — PLAY TECH CLICHÉ BINGO WITH US | John Thornhill
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(Financial Times, 27 December 2017)

This year I have been lucky enough to attend several tech events. Lucky because I love nothing more than to hear improbable tales of plucky individuals defying the odds, fulfilling their dreams and launching successful businesses. A conference is not a conference unless it contains a good goosebump moment.

But, it has to be said, tech events seem to generate a disproportionate amount of thoughtless guff. During such lulls, I have taken to playing tech cliché bingo.

Here are some of my favourites:

    So …

Apparently, it is obligatory to start every tech talk with this superfluous verbal tic. I blame Mark Zuckerberg.

    We are the Uber for …

It is often helpful to give the audience a snapshot of what you do. But it is probably not so helpful to associate yourself with a massively loss-making, ethically warped, and reputationally challenged business.

    We are the Airbnb for …

One step better in terms of reputation, but not much better in terms of originality.

    We celebrate failure.

This phrase is only ever said by highly successful people little acquainted with the true meaning of the word. It should be obvious to everyone: failure sucks. It kills relationships, drains money, and destroys lives. The alternative is always preferable.

    We champion diversity.

Invariably said by one of four white men sitting on a panel (or manel).

    We are going to disrupt industry x, y, z.

Disrupting an industry is good for the disrupter and may be good for consumers. Then again it may not. Disruption can result in the erosion of employee rights and mass job losses, one of the causes of populist outrage. Not many people want to live in a disrupted society. Probably not such a good meme for 2018.

    We don’t want to boil the ocean.

It is surprising how many people who use this phrase then go on to outline business models that aim to do precisely that.

    We believe in a sharing economy.

This one is often said by companies proposing to rip data out of unsuspecting users and exploit them for blatant profit extraction.

    This is a moon shot project.

This really means: we don’t know what we’re doing and our technology doesn’t work. What’s more, this phrase is often used by extreme libertarian types seemingly unfamiliar with history. For the record, a much-derided public sector organisation — Nasa — was the first to achieve a real moon shot.

    We aim to become a unicorn.

A unicorn is a mythical creature. The financial success of many of the companies who use this term may also remain mythical.

One other common feature of tech events is the opportunity it gives for big company bosses to come onstage to tell the audience how much they love millennials. But these corporate types have their fair share of clichés too:

    We believe in open innovation …

Our company has run out of ideas. Does anyone else have any — please?

    As Bill Gates said, "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run."

Great quote but almost always misattributed. One minute on Google shows that this quotation came from Roy Amara, a former president of The Institute for the Future. That’s why it’s known as Amara’s Law.

    Here’s to the misfits.

This one is sometimes uttered by a chief executive whose suit costs more than the money raised in a start-up’s "friends and family" financing round. They are to hip what the former Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer is to dancing (check it out on YouTube).

All that said, it’s time for a small confession. I have moderated a few sessions at tech events this year and may — perhaps — have used one of or two of these clichés myself.

Bingo!

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14. USA - OBITUARIES: JANET BENSHOOF, WOMEN’S CHAMPION ON A GLOBAL SCALE, DIES AT 70 | Richard Sandomir 
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(The New York Times, Dec. 21, 2017)

Janet Benshoof, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, in her Manhattan office in 1998. Credit G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times

Janet Benshoof, a lawyer who spent much of her career defending a woman’s right to an abortion, then expanded her work to champion causes for women around the world, including those raped in war zones, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 70.

Her son David Benshoof Klein said the cause was uterine serous carcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of endometrial cancer.

“For there to be justice, peace and security in the world, there has to be equality of women in fact,” Ms. Benshoof said at a Google talk in 2008. “If women are always out of the boardrooms and the decision makers and the military, then you do not have the sustainable justice, peace and security that is our ultimate aim.”

Over 40 years, she pursued her advocacy at three organizations in New York City: as director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s reproductive freedom project and as the founder and president of the Center for Reproductive Rights and, most recently, the Global Justice Center.

Ms. Benshoof (pronounced BEN-shawf) plotted the legal strategy for abortion and sex-education cases in state courts and the United States Supreme Court, and trained judges in Iraq to prosecute rape and sexual violence cases under international law.

“No single person has done more to promote reproductive rights than Janet in the United States and globally,” Sylvia Law, a professor of law, medicine and psychiatry at New York University, said in a telephone interview.

In 1989, while at the A.C.L.U., Ms. Benshoof argued Hodgson v. Minnesota, a Supreme Court case that challenged a state law requiring a minor to notify both biological parents before having an abortion.

She told the court that the two-parent requirement was “out of step with the reality of family life” and that it had been imposed “regardless of whether the minor lives in a no-parent, one-parent or two-parent household, regardless of whether she is mature, or whether it would be in the best interest to have a private abortion, regardless of whether she has ever met the absentee parent.”

The court ruled, 5-4, that the Minnesota law was constitutional because the state gave minors an alternative to the two-parent requirement by allowing them to seek authorization for an abortion in a judicial hearing.

The continuing fight to preserve abortion rights took Ms. Benshoof far afield. In 1990 she learned that the legislature in Guam, a United States territory in the Pacific, had passed a law banning abortion, except if the mother’s life or health was believed to be in imminent danger. She promptly bought a Fodor’s travel book and headed for the airport.
Photo
Janet Benshoof at the Women’s March in New York City on Jan. 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of President Trump. Credit The Global Justice Center

Once in Guam, she told reporters that pregnant women there who were seeking an abortion should fly to Honolulu. She was arrested and arraigned for soliciting women to have abortions, a crime in Guam punishable by a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

“Never have I seen a statute anywhere in the world,” she told People magazine, “where to talk about abortion to pregnant women is a crime.”

Joseph Ada, Guam’s governor, was displeased by Ms. Benshoof’s flouting of the law. “It’s her right to question it,” he said, “but she’s making a mockery of our abortion law. That’s not nice.”

The charges were eventually dropped, and the law was struck down by a federal district judge, who ruled that Roe v. Wade, which made abortion a constitutional right, “applied with equal force and effect to Guam.”

At the time, the A.C.L.U. was already representing Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania against Gov. Robert P. Casey, a Democrat, in a case that challenged the state’s abortion law as an unconstitutional infringement of women’s rights to privacy and equality.

Kathryn Kolbert, the A.C.L.U.’s co-counsel on the case, said in an interview that as it headed for an appeal to the Supreme Court, Ms. Benshoof provided critical advice about framing its petition for review.

“Janet would have flashes of brilliance that few lawyers I knew had,” said Ms. Kolbert, who is director of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College. “Once in a while, she’d come up with a way of approaching a case that the rest of us wouldn’t have.”

Ms. Benshoof suggested that instead of having the introduction to the A.C.L.U. petition address each provision of the law separately, as was commonly done, it should raise only a single all-or-nothing question.

The question posed by Ms. Kolbert and her co-counsel, Linda Wharton, reflected their belief that the court’s rulings since 1973 had eroded Roe and their fear that Clarence Thomas’s confirmation as a justice in 1991 gave the court five votes to overturn the decision.

“Has the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade?” the lawyers asked.

In 1992, the court affirmed Roe, 5-4, but still upheld most of the state’s restrictions.

But having anticipated that Roe would be overturned, Ms. Benshoof and the rest of the abortion-rights staff had left the A.C.L.U. before the court’s ruling to form what was then called the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

Photo
Janet Benshoof in an undated photograph. “No single person has done more to promote reproductive rights than Janet,” a colleague said. Credit Lynn Savarese for the New Abolitionists Campaign

One of her signature achievements at the center resulted in the Food and Drug Administration’s approval in 1996 of the use of the morning-after pill as an emergency contraceptive to prevent unwanted pregnancies. The center had filed a citizen’s petition with the agency two years earlier asking companies to label the pill as a post-intercourse contraceptive.

“The F.D.A. has stood idly by as drug manufacturers routinely suppress required information about safe and effective emergency contraception,” Ms. Benshoof told The Washington Post in 1994 at the time that she filed the petition with the F.D.A. “Millions of women are being hurt.”

Janet Lee Benshoof was born on May 10, 1947, in Detroit Lakes, Minn. Her father, Lowell, was a county prosecutor, and her mother, the former Helen Genevieve Kohler, was a teacher.

She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Minnesota and later from Harvard Law School, where she met her first husband, Richard Klein.

After Harvard Law, she spent five years at South Brooklyn Legal Services, where she supervised class-action litigation for low-income people. She then joined the A.C.L.U., where her clients included abortion doctors.

One of them, Dr. Barnett Slepian, was murdered in his home in Buffalo 1998 by an abortion opponent.

“We’ve represented most of the abortion providers,” she told The Times in 1998. “At one time or another, nearly all our clients have been under death threats.” But she did not fear for her safety, she said, adding: “If I’m supposed to die, I’ll die. I also sky-dive. And I scuba-dive. I don’t think I’ve ever been scared in my life.”

As her concerns about women’s rights turned to the world stage, the Global Justice Center became her most prominent platform to address repression by authoritarian regimes. In addition to training judges of the Iraqi High Tribunal in dealing with cases of sexual violence during Saddam Hussein’s rule, she and her organization lobbied to see Myanmar’s military government face prosecution for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague and filed amicus briefs with that court seeking justice for the Yazidis, the often-prosecuted Iraqi minority who have been victims of genocide by the Islamic State group, according to United Nations investigators.

“ISIS’s state-building strategy is dependent on the subjugation of women and control over their reproductive capacity as a way to secure the continuity and future of the caliphate,” she wrote in a 2015 letter to Fatou Bensouda, the international court’s chief prosecutor. Yazidi women, she added, “are systematically captured, murdered, enslaved, forced into marriages, raped, sexually assaulted, tortured, forcibly impregnated and forcibly converted.”

Ms. Benshoof’s work also led the European Union in 2015 to recognize that abortion is protected care under the Geneva Conventions for girls and women who are raped in conflict. The action was a rebuke to the Helms Amendment, a 1973 United States law originally sponsored by Senator Jesse Helms, which prohibits the use of foreign assistance for abortion.

In addition to her son David, she is survived by her husband, Alfred Meyer; another son, Eli Klein; a stepson, Nick Rose-Meyer; two step-grandchildren; and a sister, Lou Ann Garvey. Her marriage to Mr. Klein ended in divorce.

Ms. Benshoof’s marriage to Mr. Meyer was officiated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a longtime friend.

Five days before Ms. Benshoof died, Justice Ginsburg sent her a letter that read, in part: “Martin Luther King said the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. To make that so it takes people of your commitment, will and grit.”

A version of this article appears in print on December 22, 2017, on Page A24 of the New York edition with the headline: Janet Benshoof, Women’s Champion, Dies at 70

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