From Tom Megginson…

I’ve been watching this social marketing cautionary tale unfold all week, from the first time I saw it in Jezebel on Tuesday, to Feministing‘s call for a write-in protest campaign on Wednesday, to yesterday’s news on Adland that the offending parts of the campaign had been removed.

What was the big problem?

This:

Included in The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board’s online ”Control Tonight” campaign, this was part of a series of consequences of binge drinking. In Jezebel’s words, the ad “almost defies parody to make the case that if you drink too much, someone might rape your friend, and it will be your fault. That dovetails nicely into the idea that if you get raped after drinking, you should blame your drunk ass friends. Guys, this sort of thing isn’t helpful.”

Feministing said, “Again we see our culture continuing to teach ‘Don’t get raped!’ instead of ‘Don’t rape.’ And instead of teaching people how to make sure they’re properly getting consent from someone they’re hooking up with, our society perpetuates a mindset that makes women feel guilty for a crime committed against them.”

A version included on the site also blamed the victim’s friends:

The ad was voluntarily pulled on Thursday.

More after the break.

Also gone from the campaign site are these other shock ads (images via The Daily Mail):

This is exactly the kind of campaign that cause advertisers think will work, because it’s “edgy”, but which has all sorts of regrettable unintended consequences. First of all, a shock ad just like the “Porcelain Prince” one, above, was found to have actually increased the likelihood that youth at risk would binge drink.

According to Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, “ people who are already feeling guilt or shame resort to something called ‘defensive processing’ when confronted with more of either, and tend to disassociate themselves with whatever they are being shown in order to lessen those emotions.” That is, the ads actually create a kind of reverse effect by making viewers even less likely to identify themselves with the person and consequences shown.

Which brings us to the even more disastrous shaming tactic of rape victim-blaming.

The campaign site still has this:

“Men and women who binge drink are more likely to have unprotected sex and multiple sex partners—increasing the risk of unintended pregnancy and STDs6. But you can help your friends avoid dangerous decisions that might have lifelong consequences.

TIP #1: HELP THEM STAY IN CONTROL.
Binge drinking can cause good friends to make bad decisions. They may not know where to draw the line when on a date, or when to leave before things go too far. They might forget to use protection and risk getting an STD. Help them stay in control so they are aware of what they’re doing and can make good decisions.”

Which is a little better than showing an image which, in the words of Julie Mastrine, a junior from Penn State University “is very triggering for rape victims.”

I have no doubt that the creators of this campaign meant well. They were trying to “tell it like it is”, using strong words and images to get attention. But social marketing is not just about getting attention. It is about persuading people to adopt more positive behaviors by providing moral (or more material) incentives of altruism and/or self interest. It is a complicated and sensitive matter. And it is very easy to give the wrong message for the right reasons.

Hopefully, this is a teachable moment for liquor control authorities around the world, as well as for responsible advertisers and ad men and women. It’s not an exact science, what we do. But at least we can learn from industry mistakes.

Posted at:

Osocio

Advertiser:

Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board

Source:

Adland

From Saudi Arabia Corespondent Eman Al Nafjan…

The ministry of justice was provoked this week by an outspoken piece by Dr. Badriya Al Bishr to issue a statement to the same newspaper where Al Bishr’s piece was published. Al Bishr criticized the white washing of the Saudi justice system that took place at the International Association of Lawyers 55^th Congress in Miami. There, the minister of Justice, prof. Mohammed Al Eissa gave a talk on the justice system in Saudi Arabia. According to local papers his talk mostly constituted a presentation on how wonderful and just the Saudi justice system. The papers reported that among other things he stated that the Saudi justice system does not discriminate between men and women when it comes to rights and obligations. The audacity of making such a statement at an international conference by no less than the minister of justice himself seriously makes me wonder if this whole thing is all my head. Did I imagine that a few weeks ago a Saudi woman was sentenced to ten lashes for driving her own car and that only a pardon from the king spared her the punishment? Is Najla Hariri’s upcoming trial for driving her car a figment of my imagination? How about that the ministry of justice refuses to issue licenses to women to practice law and won’t even recognize the title of lawyer for women who have obtained licenses abroad, did that change overnight?

AlBishr is apparently having the same delusions as I am, since she pointed out how sexist the ministry is when it comes to sentencing in homicide cases. If women are charged with murdering their spouse, it’s an automatic death sentence while men who murder their wives are dealt with much more leniently. AlBishr cites the recent case of a man who ran over his wife because she would not give him her salary. The murder was committed in daylight, in front of the woman’s family home and in front of several witnesses and yet the man was only sentenced to 12 years in prison. Another case that I recall is one where a man decapitated his wife in front of their toddler and was originally sentenced to only five years in prison then revised to 15.

AlBishr also notes the irony in that the minister’s talk coincided with news that a teacher at an elementary school has reached out to activists concerning the weddings of two of her students during Hajj break. The third and fourth grade girls were scheduled to be married off to adult men at the same time that the minister was giving his talk in Miami. To say that there is no gender discrimination in the Saudi justice system is an outright denial of the truth. However the ministry in issuing its statement today has shown that it is persistent in this denial even at the national level.

In the statement, the head of the ministry’s press office, Ibrahim AlTayyer, mostly took offence with the part of AlBishr’s column that raised the issue of child marriages. He states that according to ministry studies the number of child marriages are not high enough to consider it a phenomenon in Saudi. Though he did not mention what number would be enough for the ministry to act nor more importantly disclose the number of child marriages that was documented in those studies. To me one child marriage is enough to issue a law however it is obviously much more than that. According to an interview with AlRiyadh Newspaper on Jan/22/2010, a sociologist, Dr. Al Johara Mohammed, states that “among us there are more than 3000 Saudi girls aged no more than 13 years married to men in the age of their parents or grandparents”. Are 3000 cases of pedophilia not a signficant enough number for our ministry? How about that an anonymous source within the ministry itself informed AlWatan Newspaper on Oct/15/2010 that in the Eastern region alone, during the previous year, 40 cases of child marriages were stopped via verbal unofficial instructions. The number of child marriages that were approved however was not mentioned in that article, only an interview with a girl who was a victim of child marriages.

AlTayyer went on to state that regardless of the ministry’s position on child marriages, it is not within its governmental jurisdiction to issue a law consigning a minimum age for marriage. If it’s not the ministry of justice’s jurisdiction, than whose is it? The Shura council when they were discussing the implementation of a child protection system, refused to officially recognize child marriages as a form of child abuse. Their reasoning was a bla bla bla argument on the semantics of child and minor.

The remarkable thing is that there is a widespread consensus among Saudis that child marriages should be banned. Members of the royal family, religious scholars, high ranking government officials and celebrities have all spoken out against it. Yet you can tell from AlTayyer’s statement that simply issuing a law that sets a minimum age for marriage is not going to happen in the forseeable future.

Maybe this is due to the hold that fundamentalists have on the Saudi government. A member of the highest religious council, sheikh AlFowzan, wrote in Okaz newspaper last July that child marriages should not be banned and warns that if we do ban them God will punish us by inflicting us with wars and plagues. A sentiment echoed yesterday by a Saudi woman columnist, Fatima Al Faqih. Besides the usual disputed argument that the Prophet (PBUH) married one of his wives when she was only six and consummated it when she was nine, she reasons that since girls for centuries were able to physically survive child marriages then the scientific argument against child marriages is de facto disproven.

Regarding those who claim that we should not abolish child marriages because the prophet (pbuh) consummated his marriage with Aisha when she was nine, this has been repeatedly proven inconsistent with historian records. This is discussed and you can read more about it in English. Besides the historical inconsistency, it’s also inconsistent with the prophet’s behavior since all his other wives were not only adult women but also divorcees and widows. And if we were to go with the fundamentalist argument that we should not ban anything that isn’t banned by the Qur’an than slavery should be legalized and sexual intercourse between a master and his female slaves as well. Both should be considered completely legal if we were to solely go upon the text of the Qur’an. Yet the government has abolished slavery and intercourse is only legal within the confines of marriage. So why can’t we abolish child marriages in the same way?

On a final note, in the local papers on the minister’s talk at the Miami conference, it is reported that the President of the International Association of Lawyers, Pascal Maurer, was impressed by the Saudi judicial system and hoped that the law system would be made accessible to the international community so that they could benefit.

I could not find any report of Prof. AlEissa’s talk in American or international press.

From Saudi Arabia Corespondent Eman Al Nafjan…

In Saudi Arabia my gender decides whether or not I can enter certain ministries, what I can major in college and if I can name my own child.

My gender mandates that I cannot drive my own car. No matter what age I am or how well I drive, I have to find a male to drive my car.

If I were divorced, a widow or simply had a husband that was out of the country at the time, my gender dictates that I have to find a male relative to obtain a birth certificate and document my child’s name at government circles.

My gender also mandates whether I can freely leave the country or not. As a woman, if I need to travel, I am at the mercy of my father and husband. At the airport I am stopped and required to show an official yellow card from the Saudi Interior Ministry that states that my husband has granted me permission to travel. If I fail to provide it, then I’m escorted out of the airport and told to go home and convince my husband.

My husband can legally divorce me without reason, without my presence and without my knowledge.

In public schools, from the age of twelve, girls are forced to cover their faces completely with not even a slit for their eyes as they enter and leave the strictly girls only schools.

All restaurants cannot allow women in unless they have a separate entrance and area for them to sit in.

All of these rules are not only socially or culturally enforced but legally as well. So that no matter how much our society may move forward and general awareness is raised, the laws pull us back. This legal and governmental factor makes it extremely difficult for forward thinking women to demand change. If I drive my car as a woman, I am not only breaking a social taboo but also entering into a discussion of whether or not I’m breaking the law and challenging the government. This is what has led to the nine-day imprisonment of Manal Al Sharif. One of the accusations presented against her by government officials is driving a car while female within a city and inciting other women to do the same. Just last week another Saudi woman was sentenced to ten lashes for driving a car in a city. The king soon pardoned her, but it remains a fact that a judge can do that.

A member of the highest Islamic council, Sheikh Al Manea, reasons that it is justified to sentence a woman to physical punishment or imprisonment for driving a car, not because she drove the car per se but because she broke the law. These types of arguments are what makes it particularly difficult for the women rights movement in Saudi Arabia. The argument that you are not only breaking a social, cultural or even religious taboo but also going against the government and legal system can be a powerful deterrent to Saudi women who need to speak up for their rights.

A few months ago, the aforementioned Manal Al Sharif, spearheaded a movement to get Saudis used to the idea of a woman behind the steering wheel. July 17th was set as the day when Saudi women would start to drive themselves to work or school rather than rely on a male driver. The purpose was that from that day and onwards more and more women would slowly gain the courage to drive. At the same time Saudi society in general would gradually get used to the sight of women driving. Unfortunately that was not how it worked out. A couple of weeks before July 17th, Manal Al Sharif was arrested.

On the day itself there was a heavy police presence on all the main streets. Despite these obstacles, a few brave women drove their cars. I was fortunate enough to be able to be a part of it, even though Ive never learned to drive. I got into the car with another Saudi woman, Azza Al Shmasi. As I videotaped, she drove for 15 minutes close to a main street in Riyadh. When I got home I excitedly shared the video with my followers on Twitter, as did all the women who drove that day. Then for the next few weeks, more and more women drove and uploaded videos. It seemed as though we were making progress.

Unfortunately our progress was severely halted when several of the women who took part started receiving phone calls from the interior ministry and getting trial dates. I started receiving calls from the investigation unit at the Interior Ministry about a month after the last time I got into the car with Azza. In the beginning it seems as if they had made the assumption that my husband does not support me in my fight for women rights. They asked to speak to him, as though they did not have his full details right there in my file. This tactic of threatening women with informing their male guardians might have worked decades ago but Saudi society has evolved past that. The overwhelming majority of women who went out to drive have the full support of their immediate families. After two weeks of these harassing phone calls, my husband was called to the ministry. He refused to sign the pledge that he would make sure that I would not drive or upload videos of driving. The phone calls stopped. However, another Saudi woman, Najla Hariri has not been as fortunate. After her phone calls and visit to the interior ministry, she is currently awaiting a trial.

Here we were, fighting for the simple and basic right to drive our own cars. So we were surprised when King Abdullah surpassed all these rights that we had been fighting for and granted women not only the vote but also the right to be nominated as candidates in the 2015 municipal elections. The king also announced that women would be included in his appointed parliament. These changes are huge breakthroughs in the fight for womens rights, however they remain far in the future and have no effect on the day to day life of Saudi women today. They have however enraged many of our sheikhs. One such sheikh is Shiekh Allehiedan, another member of the Saudi highest Islamic council. He came out on TV to state that the king had not consulted with him before these announcements and that he is more protective of the country and its Sharia constitution than the king himself. Other extreme conservatives have also made a point of stating their unhappiness with these announcements. A worrying but unsurprising development; the extreme conservative have had a hold on the country from its very beginning. A partnership between the government and the mosque that is gradually growing sour because of the failure of both in reining in the peoples demands for their freedom and rights.

Many people fail to realize how relatively new Saudi Arabia is. It was not declared a country until 1932, so it is only about 80 years old. It is about 5 times the size of Germany. Our first king, King Abdulaziz, managed to unify this vast desert land despite the different cultures and even religious Islamic sects of its people. Then with the discovery of oil, led our dispersed people into building one of the more prosperous countries of the world.

Unlike the majority of our neighbors we were not colonized so we did not have a western law system imposed upon us. We had to start with the tools we had at the time; Arab tribal law and religion. Starting as we did from square one in the modern world makes for some interesting challenges. Condensing hundreds of years of evolvement of national law, civilian rights and freedom in a few decades. From that perspective, it is not hard to understand how we have come to have all these modern amenities and yet live a lifestyle that is reminiscent of medieval times.

As a Saudi woman, I understand all this. I also understand how exotic Saudi women are to the rest of the world. Our abayas and culture are a more subtle form of the same exoticism of the Padaung tribe where women wore neck bracelets that made them look giraffe necked. Despite how uncomfortable it looked and how much it affected their lives, it seemed to outsiders as though they were proud of their heritage and wanted to maintain it by passing it on to future generations. However when human rights organizations dug beneath the surface they found that it was face, politics and economics that were forcing this tradition on women who wanted better for themselves and their daughters.

Although we don’t wear our niqabs because we need to draw tourists, we still have in common with these Burmese women that a combination of face, politics and economics have constricted our freedom and put many unnecessary obstacles in the path of our happiness. Arab traditions and culture have dictated the most extreme governmentally enforced environment of gender discrimination. So much so that these factors have resulted in the creation of the only gender apartheid in todays world.
As a Saudi woman, I understand all this, yet; somehow it does not alleviate my frustration at how my country’s history has such an impact on my day-to-day life.

This is the English original version I wrote and was translated to German and published in the new print edition of Stern magazine no41/2011, Thursday, 6th of October, pages 54-57

From Philippines Congressman Mong Palatino…

Unknown to many, it was Joseph Estrada who provided the simplest if not original definition of global warming when he was still president in 1998. Responding to the allegation that he has been appointing close associates in juicy government posts, he said: “Weather Weather lang yan.” And like politics, global warming is ‘Weather Weather lang yan.”

In 1998, climate change was still an esoteric term in the academe and only the geeks and scientists used it in everyday conversations. But in the past decade, it became mainstream because of numerous extreme weather events like Milenyo, Ondoy, Pepeng, Frank, Reming, and El Nino. Ondoy, if we recall, triggered the worst flooding in Mega Manila in four decades while Reming remains to this day the strongest super typhoon that ever hit the country. In popular culture, it was a subject of several Hollywood blockbusters like The Day After Tomorrow, Simpsons, and Ice Age. Al Gore won a Nobel Prize for lecturing about it. So it’s correct to assume that the new generation acknowledges that global warming is real (unlike some U.S. politicians) and young people are more or less aware of the obvious harsh impact of changing climate patterns.

Who are the members of the Greeneration? They are sometimes called the Post Edsa generation, digital natives, networked generation, Strawberry Generation. The muggles who grew up with Harry Potter. Kung may Marcos Babies noon, may Arroyo Babies ngayon. My generation, the Generation X, is most certainly still part of the Greeneration.

As students, we were bombarded with homilies reminding us to save the environment. If Miriam Santiago eats death threats for breakfast when she was still the country’s top Immigration chief, our generation has been fed with, well, aside from nutri ban during the Marcos era, green doctrines that made us aware about the fragile state of our environment and the urgency of action to reverse the deteriorating quality of life and living in this planet.

Our formative years, 1980s and 1990s, were influenced by great political events (like Edsa, coup d’etat, and the introduction of cono English by Kris Aquino) and destructive environment disasters (like Ormoc and lahar). When we were growing up, Pasig was already filthy and Manila Bay was already a dangerous and dirty place for swimming (sabi nga ni Villar, dagat ng basura). The symbol of Manila was Smokey Mountain (the dumpsite ha, hindi yung singing group. Oh yung ngumiti ibig sabihin kasing-edad ko), then it was closed down but the dumping of garbage was merely transferred to Payatas (which is symbolically close to Batasan).

The common indicators of environment degradation are denuded forests and polluted rivers; and their visible impact in the urban is the popularity of bottled drinking water. Until elementary, I was drinking water from the faucet. Today, it’s no longer safe to drink Nawasa juice hence the ubiquitous use of bottled water. And this modern lifestyle is a direct consequence of 1) unclean environment; 2) bad governance. Isn’t it odd that a nation surrounded by waters and blessed with abundant natural resources is suffering from a shortage of clean drinking water sources? Maybe we should copy what resource-poor Singapore is doing like building desalinization plants and recycling wastewater.

The Greeneration is our new breed of eco-warriors who can be easily persuaded to support green initiatives like green living and green jobs. But being kind to Mother Earth doesn’t necessarily translate into successful and sustainable green campaigns. There is a disconnect between what individuals think and feel about the environment and the practical, everyday solutions to help clean the environment. Environment advocacy to many people is just a habit and hobby, and not something that can lead to a successful career.

Why is it that despite the rise of green consciousness in society, there is a dearth of course offerings in the academe that would generate and support green industries? Why is it that despite the emergence of environmentalism as a safe and approved advocacy in campuses, there is a seeming lack of programs that would instill and enhance the green skills of our young?

The blame lies in the backward orientation of many of our schools. We produce college graduates to fill up the manpower shortages of other countries and not the needs of our domestic industries. The priority of profit oriented school, and they compose the majority of schools in the country, is to offer popular courses. The result is the oversubscription of some courses like nursing and under enrolment in the essential courses like agriculture, geology, and marine science.

To promote green jobs, we have to engage our schools, overhaul our curriculum, and subsidize the teaching of green skills. I suspect that colleges continue to operate conservatively because of a failure to imagine the opportunities to be gained if they offer green courses. We should tap the Commission on Higher Education to begin the review of higher education programs and consider the inclusion of green subjects that would lead to the establishment of green industries using green technologies in the future. We should ask TESDA to integrate more green industries in their training programs. We should ask the Department of Education to include green jobs and green entrepreneurship topics in the new curriculum which is being prepared for the K-12 program.

Why is ‘green jobs’ a bright alternative? Because it teaches the youth that saving the environment is more than just planting trees (look, we have green highways but we have brown mountains) and segregating our garbage (look, we carefully and dutifully separate the biodegradable and non-biodegradable trash but they are all dumped anyway in the dumpsite). We can be more than just green consumers who buy green bags (actually, an environmentalist will not entice you to buy green. Instead, he will encourage you to reduce your consumption of non-essential goods).

The ‘green jobs’ alternative is similar to other innovative approaches that aim to address the negative impact of global warming. Let’s learn from our initial experience with Renewable Energy – it’s a term which has gone almost mainstream and it has become a favorite slogan of many people including business leaders and politicians, but it’s mostly a grand dream with lofty objectives. It remains a very appealing idea whose widespread application would have benefited many people. But nobody is investing in Renewable Energy since most companies prefer clean coal and mining and besides, government budget support is negligible.

The success of Green Jobs requires political will, commitment from the private sector, and sustained public support. Political will means funding support, synergy in national and local policies, and serious mobilization of public resources and institutions. Commitment from the private sector involves the rethinking of business practices that harm the environment (you can’t preach Corporate Social Responsibility while your core business method requires the wanton plunder and destruction of precious, finite natural resources) and willingness to invest in green industries. Sustained public support means the active participation of the people – civil society, people’s organizations, media, church, civic groups – in the conversations and campaign to promote green jobs.

Tapping the idealism and passion of the youth is a step in the right direction. Yesterday, Paris Hilton arrived in the country and she immediately became the top trending topic in the local virtual space. I refuse to believe that young people today are only interested in gossip, leisure, and entertainment. Green jobs and saving the environment are way way cooler than Paris Hilton.

From Saudi Arabia Corespondent Eman Al Nafjan…

Yesterday afternoon a document went viral all across the online news agencies and social media. The document is dated Sunday the 31^st of October and in it is a fatwa and not just any fatwa, an official fatwa from the governmentally appointed committee for fatwas i.e. the highest council of our ultra conservative version of Sunni Islam. What’s so important that this committee would get together and issue a document and on the very same day release it to the press? Women, of course! A quick translation of the document:

This fatwa is issued in reply to the below question:

Several companies and shops are employing women as cashiers who serve both men and women as families. Each day these women cashiers meet dozens of men, and speak to them while handling back and forth money and receipts. In addition these women cashiers are required to undergo training, attend meetings and interact with their colleagues and supervisor at work. What is the ruling on women working as such? What is the ruling regarding companies and shops that recruit women? Please advise.ddi

After study, the committee has come to the following reply:

It is not permitted for a Muslim woman to work in a place where they intermingle with men. A woman should stay away from places where men gather. She should search for employment that does not expose her to temptation nor make her a source of temptation. And what you have mentioned in your question does expose her to temptation and tempt men, hence it is Islamically prohibited. And the companies that employ women are collaborating with them in what is Islamically prohibited and thus they too are committing a prohibition. It is known that whoever fears God by leaving what God has prohibited and does what God asks of him, God will then facilitate his affairs, just as promised in the Quran (translation* verse 3/Al Talaq):

{And He provides for him from (sources) he never could imagine. And if any one puts his trust in Allah, sufficient is (Allah) for him. For Allah will surely accomplish his purpose: verily, for all things has Allah appointed a due proportion.}

And the Prophet PBUH said: It will not be that you abandon something for the sake of God, but that God will compensate with what is better for you.

(my translation)

There is a glimmer of hope here though. First off, this council, throughout its history, has prohibited things that remain legal, such as music and satellite TV channels that are not Islamic. So this fatwa might join the list of things that Saudis feel unwarrantedly guilty about but still do. It would be a shame if another door closes in the faces of women who are in desperate need of jobs.

A scan of the document:

*Yusuf Ali translation

From Saudi Arabia Corespondent Eman Al Nafjan…

I’ve been wanting to write this post all day but I just couldn’t get myself to do it. I wanted to write about how frustrated and sad I am, but what does it matter how I feel standing as a helpless onlooker, reading these horror stories about 10, 12 and 13 year olds being legally and openly married (read sold off) to men decades their seniors. I’ve gone through all the emotions and now I’m weary of the nightmare scenarios going through my head as I imagine what these poor children are going through. So let me just state the facts:

In Najran, a city in the south of Saudi a thirteen year old girl was married off to a man in his fifties. Everyone in the family opposed the marriage including the girl’s grandfather and uncle but nothing could be done to stop it. According to a family member, the father went through with is because he wanted to use her a dowry for a new car.

In another case, a sheikh, Saeed Al Jaleel, has come out saying that a couple of years back he was asked to marry a 10 year old girl to a 34 year old man. He tried to stop the marriage. He spoke to the girl’s mother to try to get her to object, he tried to convince the father not to go through with it but they both insisted. His hands were tied since there are no regulations, and he married them.

And finally you have this story in Arab News:

NAJRAN: A marriage official (mazoun) in the southern city of Najran has told a local Arabic daily that he had married a minor girl who is barely 12 years old and consummated their marriage after only two and a half months….”When my mother insisted I consummate my marriage, I had to summon up the courage for two weeks before I was able to have sex with her,” he said. He said when he first saw her, he was shocked by her fragility and added that he spent a long time trying to understand how to treat her.”

Since reforms have started the only thing that has been implemented is that women can book into a hotel without a male guardian’s permission. A small step but now the time is ripe for criminalizing wedlock pedophilia. And don’t give me that line that the prophet PBUH married Aisha when she was 9 years old. That’s disputed and historians have shown that she was actually 19.

So many Saudis tired and upset about these stories, including members of the royal family. A huge campaign and petition organized by one of the biggest women magazines in the Middle East, Sayidaty, and signed by icons and leaders, all this and nothing to show for it.

Women are still considered legally minors no matter how old they are, banned from driving, and at the mercy of their guardians when it comes to education, work, marriage, divorce and child custody.

We need laws to instate our rights as human beings and protect our daughters from these horrors.

From Saudi Arabia Corespondent Eman Al Nafjan…

I occasionally get Emails and comments from non-Arab people asking what they can do to help. Generally there isn’t much that can be done by outsiders as it’s my belief that sustainable change is only change that happens from within. However in areas where West collides with East there are things that can be done to either hurt moderate Muslims or help us.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an area that has a lot of impact on the growth and recruitment of terrorist Islamic movements. This is a previous post on how young Saudis come to hate the West as a result of it.

Now with the Park51 Mosque, things have come to a head. This is an area where you can help. To lump Islam as one single ideology and 23% of the world population as terrorists is a grave mistake. To fight Islam in general is the single best backing position for the West to take in aiding fundamental Islamists. When you don’t support people like Imam Rauf and Tariq Ramadan, then in effect you are supporting people like Osama Bin Laden.

When outsiders  lump Islam into this one narrow interpretation that must be fought, they are playing their part in Osama Bin Laden’s world stage. Fundamental Islamists, from the nonviolent to terrorists all use the same effective argument to recruit Muslim laypeople. It goes along the lines of “see, see they hate us. They want to wipe us off the face of the Earth. Where is their freedom and democracy?”

They use as examples for this argument America’s support for Israel, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and discrimination against Muslims in western countries. The opposition to and cancellation of Park 51 looks like a future addition to the list alongside the burning of the Qurans in Florida.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone born in a Muslim country who only speaks the language of that country and who has never been anywhere besides that country. Your religious leader, your school teacher or any other person you might have reason to be drawn to tells you about the Palestinian plight illustrated with photos of maimed children and refugee camps. He then talks to you about the innocent civilians killed indiscriminately by American tanks and bombs. Iraqi women raped by American soldiers. He shows you pictures from Abu Ghraib. He talks to you about how Americans hate Muslims and illustrates about how thousands of Americans opposed the building of a mosque and how an American priest is going to burn the Quran. How would you feel?

Do Americans really want to feed into that argument? Islam is the second largest religion in the world, second only to Christianity. It’s not going away, you either help moderate Muslims or you feed into the fundamentalists’ view of the world. Who do you want to be proven wrong?

From Tanzania Corespondent Lute Wa Lutengano…

I was last in Kipengere, a sleepy village below the imposing Kipengere Mountain peak on the eastern end of the famous Mount Livingstone ranges, in the mid 60s. The village which is roughly mid-way from Njombe town to Tandala in Ukingaland, Makete used to be an important stopping stage for our rough ride from the town to our boarding school in Tandala.

It was an important stage because of the nature of road particularly during the rainy season. The rough road from Njombe usually became worse from Kipengere onwards. It was therefore important to send some scouts in advance to check on whether the muddy and slippery road had dried a bit before attempting to drive the 40 or so kilometers to Tandala through the notorious Mang’oto escarpment. Sometimes our waiting would go for days or even weeks. 

I had not gone back to Kipengere since those schooling days. It was therefore with added curiosity that I found myself driving on that same road to Kipengere last week. It was a nostalgic short visit. Many changes had taken place. The road was in a better condition and I was told the notorious Mang’oto section was being tarmaced. Actually this would be done to the whole road to Makete.

I arrived at Kipengere mid-morning and realized it was the same old sleepy village but now surrounded by large farms of wheat and maize. There was however piped water and more traffic along the road with some sleek saloon and four wheel vehicles zooming past the village.

But all life seemed to lead to the Kipengere Roman Catholic Parish mission centre. This is where there are schools, orphanages, medical and agricultural support services and naturally an imposing church. No wonder I had no choice other than turning towards to the straight, narrow and tree lined road to the mission centre. It actually reminded me of sleepy Florence, somewhere in that land of Berlusconi – Italy.

At the Centre I was interested in meeting the only person whose name is synonymous with Kipengere, if not the whole of Njombe development activities – Father Camillo Calliari. He was out on the mountain working on a water supply project he is planning for several villages, some more than 50 kilometers away.

But as luck would have it, as I drove out of the mission gate, Father Camillo arrived. The Romanian born 71 year old Italian father with graceful receding grey hair and generous beard was surprisingly sprightly fit. He is a missionary priest, like so many others doing good in this part of Tanzania. Ordained in 1965 he left for Tanzania in September 1969. Unlike other missionary priests Baba Camillo likes to do his work his way. For those who know him, he is not only a priest but also a farmer, mechanic, manufacturer and charity and development worker.

Since 1996, for example, Father Camillo has built 14 concrete water reservoirs and 250 piped water outlets in 15 villages in and around Kipengere reaching 35,000 residents. He also has 6 prefabricated ovens for bread supplied to villagers. More than 200,000 books, thousands of pens, erasers, crayons, chalks and the like have also been distributed to schools in the area.

Father Camillo, whose mission has its own hydro-electric supply system is now busy trying to expand the supply to surrounding villages by constructing a big dam, piling stringing wires, constructing four cabins for processing and turbine housing. Apart from running medical facilities the mission also has an orphanage for hundreds of children from the area whose parents either died of AIDS or other natural causes.

As an agricultural expert he runs large crop and dairy farms with his artificial zebu heifers now producing up to 25 liters of milk per day per cow. His expertise in these fields is now benefiting thousands of villagers in and around Kipengere. To cap it all, his mission is now ready for the mineral water project after successfully testing hundreds of water from the natural springs flowing down the Kipengere mountain peak.

Eight thousand kilometers from Italy, Father Camillo is not only changing the spiritual lives of thousands of Njombeans but also providing each of them with clean drinking water, medical facilities, a light bulb, a glass of milk and wheat bread on the table. Not only is he the Baba of 13,000 baptized Kipengerians but he also a true manifestation of Giorgio Torelli’s recitation “The Gospel of Toil.”

“The end of any mass,” says Father Camillo,” is the dawn when you remove the white garment worn and dive into greasy overalls and devote efforts to the most desperate. I worry though whether there will more to follow this line of duty after I pass on.”