On Identity: A Personal Journey

     Identity is such a curious thing. As human beings, we have this inherent need to designate ourselves as something, to mark us, to define us. It's an attempt to express what and who we are, both as individuals and as groups.    

In Waterland, Graham Swift contemplates how humans are the only story telling animals, always bound by that yearning to tell their stories. Identity is very much intertwined with a narrative, be it a personal or collective one that illustrates our perception of what we were, what we are, and often times (futilely) what we will become.  Identity is ultimately a narration, an expression of a story.

Identity is too complex a subject matter to narrow down effectively in one book, let alone one article. Indeed, identity encompasses our beliefs, our actions, our history, our aspirations, our sense of belonging, our sexuality, our gender, our ethnicity, our passions - to cut a long story short, identity pertains to virtually everything in our lives. Therefore, I'll simply try to briefly relate my own personal understanding of it and how my sense of identity evolved. I have come to see citizenship as the most powerful source of collective identity. 

Why as a man, I need Feminism

     "I am a feminist." This statement has caused several kinds of reactions when coming from me, a male. Ranging from an inquisitive if not suspicious "why?" to sweet praise borne not out of understanding, but rather out of amazement if not amusement. And yet the one reaction I've always wanted to hear, the self-evident "So what? Think you're special? Who isn't?", is one I've sadly yet to experience. We are a month away from 2013 now. 

So, why am I a feminist? Major reasons include a profound yearning for social justice and equality, as well as the desire for a more pragmatic society which prioritizes merit beyond superficial differences.  But I am also a feminist from a male empowerment perspective. The all too common and often times confrontational question "what about men and their rights?", whenever someone is talking about the plight of women, can be very easily answered by "feminism is the solution." So ultimately, I not only want to be a feminist, but as a man I need to be a feminist.

On Citizenry and Change: My Experience with Greenpeace

  
     This is a more personal article than my previous one. In it I'd like to share my experience with the Greenpeace local Montreal group after a couple of months working there. I do so because I believe that this experience is poignant and demonstrative of the immense power citizens can have. A power which if directed towards a constructive cause, could do wonders and move mountains.

Legalize Prostitution

     This is an issue that has been on my mind for months, though it was mostly limited to its ethical aspect. After some research however, prostitution became to my mind an issue of extreme humanitarian importance.

Now some may ask "out of all the problems in the world Ayman, you found nothing to write about other than prostitution?". Because it is a huge problem. The UN global report on trafficking estimates that around 2.4 million people (highest estimate being 9.8 million) are at any given time victims of human trafficking, 79% of whom are women and children. These victims are lured and tricked into what we can only call slavery. Human trafficking is a thriving criminal global industry estimated to be worth 32 billion USD, and prostitution constitutes the biggest share with women being the primary victims. Needless to say, other than being enslaved, these women are mistreated on a daily basis.

This article is not a policy recommendation paper, much more research and time would be required.  It's rather me sharing my thoughts on the issue and expressing the opinion that legalizing prostitution could if handled properly help reduce human trafficking and human rights violations, in addition to making it safer from a health perspective. Of course the solution for such a complex problem needs to be complex in turn, with multiple aspects to it. Pro-legalization proposes that legalizing prostitution is but a part of the solution.

Mythification of "the Golden Age"

     Nostalgia it would seem is a universal human sentiment - we fear the new and long for the old. Over-exaggerating ages of relative prosperity and strength also seems like a natural recourse when the contemporary situation is grim. Being of Muslim upbringing, I was raised with one perceived golden age that stands out as particularly over-glorified. It's what we call "the Islamic Golden Age." Once I became a student of history however, I saw that this era is not what it was made out to be, its greatness in certain aspects notwithstanding, and certainly should not be taken as a model for the modern world. 

This is obviously not a history paper I'm writing, but rather an invitation to critically re-evaluate certain perceptions.

The Third Debate: America's Phallic Foreign Policy

     I very much doubt that people expected much of the final presidential debate. To get this out of the way, I thought it revealed nothing new in terms of foreign policy and indeed, there was little to no difference between the two candidates. According to polls, only 2% of Americans consider foreign policy a priority, so it is only natural that the entire debate was going to be re-shifted to the economy. In addition, the true purpose of the debate is not to compare and contrast foreign policy philosophies and strategies, indeed they are quasi-identical, but rather to see who is more suited to be commander-in-chief. To put it in more pedestrian terms, the rivalry was to be decided based on the measurement of the male sex organ. 

But I believe that it would still be interesting to analyze what they talked about, but perhaps more importantly, what they didn’t. I’ll be looking at the segments dealing with Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Iran then look at what was said with regards to China, before concluding by looking at both candidates’ conception of American foreign policy.

On Liberalism and Democracy

  

    We live in an era of buzzwords, where words are thrown out without much thought and analysis on what they mean for maximum impact. Words like "fascist", "racist", "liberal" are said left and right in obscure ways that leave me confounded. With the events that we are living, in the MENA region in particular, "democracy" too has become a rather popular word.

However what I personally find unsettling is that "democracy" is not accompanied by its critical sibling, "liberalism."

The purpose of my first note is to draw the nuances between democracy and liberalism but also illustrate how they complement each other and that having one without the other can indeed be dangerous. I will refer to Isaiah Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty heavily to explain my argument, as it was his work that opened my eyes on the subject.

The note will be focused on broad ideas that serve as foundations rather than specific laws, institutions and political arrangements. While the latter are of course necessary, they still need a certain mindset and perception for them to be developed properly.