Author Archives: Ghada Chehade

A Reflection on Womanhood: A Taboo Subject in Taboo Times

08 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by in Culture, Philosophy, Society

≈ 2 Comments

nude-6

With International Women’s Day already a month behind us I’d like to reflect a bit on a currently taboo or off-limit subject: womanhood. It is taboo because, in the current climate of hyper-political correctness, we are not even supposed to acknowledge notions such as womanhood and manhood for fear of excluding or offending someone, somewhere, somehow. One definition of womanhood is the state or condition of being a woman. And one reason the topic may be taboo is that it is currently widely accepted that words like woman/womanhood and man/manhood are social constructs. While they are indeed social constructs, the notions of male and female are biological realities that cannot be escaped. So in order to not offend anyone, though I suspect that parts of this post may still offend some pc people, I will speak about “femalehood.”

For me, and I suspect for many other women, my physical and biological femaleness has largely shaped the state and condition of being a woman. What this means is that my biological sex, and the organs, body parts, hormones and functions that go along with it, have very much affected my state and condition of being a woman. While these are not the only things that have shaped that condition, they have been and remain very instrumental, and at times foundational, to my experience of being a woman. Continue reading →

The “Sharing Economy”: Using Soft Language to Rebrand a Failing/Failed Economy

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Political Economy, Society

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Depression Headlines

While we may not hear much about it in corporate mainstream media, today, more and more people in the west are facing unemployment, underemployment and general economic despair. This includes well educated, (formerly) middle class people that have seen their jobs down sized, outsourced or completely disappear as well as those that have spent years and a small fortune (much of it borrowed and expected to be returned with interest) on fancy university degrees only to be unemployed or underemployed after graduation.

How do I know this? Well, for starters, I am among the latter. With over a decade in university, a PhD from a very fancy school and numerous “prestigious” awards and accolades, I find myself unconventionally and sometimes marginally employed two and a half years after graduation. Traditionally, PhDs—especially those with research awards and academic publications—were almost guaranteed to find a tenure track teaching position or professorship. Today the reality is much different: Many PhD graduates are having trouble finding even just sessional or adjunct teaching positions (which typically come with much less pay and no health and pension benefits). And if you didn’t somehow manage to rack up years of teaching experience while completing a doctorate—which was my reality but is not true for all doctoral students—then your chances are more slim.

So it is that despite my fancy education I was ‘forced’—admittedly, I’m primarily a writer. I enjoy teaching university but it is not my first passion—to join the world of freelance writing and editing and become part of what is often referred to as the “sharing economy” or peer-to-peer (P2P) economy. While my freelance and contract work allows me to dedicate time to my personal writing (such as this blog) and other projects and passions, it also means less money in a world that is becoming more and more expensive to live in. Still, I am more fortunate than others. The overly educated and under-employed, as I like to call my sub-group, are fairing better than the outright unemployed, a segment that is climbing at an unacceptable rate in the west. Continue reading →

Why Do Women Get a Pass? The Double Standard Around “Sexual Harassment”: Leslie Mann & Dakota Johnson

02 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by in Culture, Current Events, Society

≈ 1 Comment

Chris-Gayle-small girls-2

I don’t often comment on pop culture, especially celebrity culture, but every once in a while something catches my attention that I have to comment on. Last month I read about an Australian cricket player, Chris Gayle, who was fined $10,000 Australian dollars (and almost suspended) for “making inappropriate comments to a female reporter in a live TV interview.” In the interview, Gayle comments on the reporter’s “beautiful eyes” several times and then says he hopes to be able to go on a date with her and calls her “baby.” He was punished for “sexual harassment,”  fined and almost suspended for the incident.

Yet today I saw a video of two Hollywood actresses very relentlessly hitting on a male reporter, without any resultant public uproar, fine or reprisal. While the incident may have been scripted (I do not know one way or another), it depicts two women very aggressively objectifying a male reporter and going way beyond anything Chris Gayle said and did in his fine-worthy gaff last month. The women blatantly tell the reporter that he is handsome then point at him, motioning for some other women to come over and have a look at the “hot man.” At one point they even ask the male reporter to undo the buttons on his shirt in order to show them his “swollen” muscles. And the male reporter obliges them as they ogle and comment on his physique and good looks. Even if it was just a stunt (and I suspect it may be scripted) it is presented as a real exchange between these randy women and the “hot” male reporter. There has been no shaming of these women for objectifying him. Instead mainstream entertainment media is applauding the actresses and telling them to “Work it, Ladies!” Continue reading →

Egypt: Five Years After the Arab Spring

25 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by in Current Events, Geopolitics, Politics

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Egypt-2

Having written about the Egyptian revolution and the ensuing political twists and turns since the 2011 uprisings, five years later I look on and wonder about the sum gains and costs. In 2011 I wrote about the importance of coupling any type of street protests and reactionary political momentum with behind the scenes, long term strategic and ideological planning for what comes after the “revolutionary moment.”

While numbers and street protests play a part in popular uprisings, without strategic planning for what comes next (i.e., plans and alternatives for the post-revolutionary trajectory) people’s uprisings can be easily co-opted and revolutionary hopes thwarted. As I noted in an article last year, “the Egyptian revolution originally began with calls for ‘bread, freedom, social justice and human dignity.’ Nowhere in this popular discourse were there demands for greater religiosity or increased state force” [1]. Yet this is the trajectory that the revolution took, with the Muslim Brotherhood co-opting the people’s uprising and coming to power in 2012, to later be ousted by the Mubarak-esque military regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, which, for many, has thus far been as draconian as that of former president Hosni Mubarak.

To read more

Istanbul Bombings: Another Case of Blowback?

12 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Current Events, Geopolitics, Politics

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Istanbul

It remains to be confirmed, but western officials are already blaming ISIS/ISIL for today’s bombings in Istanbul. The American special envoy to coordinate the fight against the Islamic State, Brett McGurk, has condemned the Istanbul attack. He tweeted: “Strongly condemn suicide attack in heart of Istanbul and stand with the people of Turkey in our common fight against ISIL terrorists.” [1]What is both interesting and extremely frustrating (not least for the poor innocent victims of the bombing, who were mostly German nationals and for the people of Istanbul who will likely live in fear in its aftermath) about the Istanbul bombing is that Turkey (and certain western allies) has been supportive of ISIS.

If ISIS is behind today’s Blue Mosque area bombings, then this is yet another tragic example of blowback; a regime that has supported particular terrorists groups later has to deal with the same group committing violent acts of terrorism on its soil. Turkey is a NATO member and a strategic ally of the US. While western powers like the US readily condemn Islamic terrorism, they seem unwilling to take out terrorist groups like ISIS, despite having the capacity to do so. This is something even the mainstream media acknowledges. After the 2015 Paris attacks, the Guardian lamented that: “we can expect western heads of state to do what they always do in such circumstances: declare total and unremitting war on those who brought it about. They don’t actually mean it. They’ve had the means to uproot and destroy Islamic State within their hands for over a year now. They’ve simply refused to make use of it.” [2] Continue reading →

The West and the Rise of Global Terrorism

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Geopolitics, Politics

≈ 1 Comment

ISIS-2 The West claims to be against terrorism yet targets secular Muslim countries while promoting radical Islam?

It has been a while since I’ve posted here. Today’s post was meant to be a continuation of my last post, which explored the burqa (face covering) and the increasing trend of over-exposed flesh—i.e., short shorts that show the butt cheeks, etc—as two sides of an extreme coin that ultimately serves the system of global capitalism and capitalist imperialism.

I planned to expand upon this last point in today’s post. However, in light of last month’s Paris terrorist attacks and the ongoing rise of ISIS related terrorist violence, I’d like to focus on another, though related, topic: the role of certain western powers in the promotion of radical Islam and Islamic extremism and terrorist groups like ISIS and others.

While this topic may seem unrelated to the issue of the burqa, as a symbol of religious extremism, it is not surprising that the prevalence of the burqa has increased as the support for radical Islam–both within the Muslim world and by certain western powers–has increased. In this way the two topics are not completely unrelated. Continue reading →

Reflecting on Burqas…and Butt Cheeks

05 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by in Culture, Current Events, Society

≈ 4 Comments

burka1shorts

During the whole Stephen Harper burqa or nikab (face covering worn by some Muslim women) controversy, friends and acquaintances often asked me my opinion on the matter. I assume this is because I write about political and social issues. But it is likely also due to the fact that I am of Middle Eastern origin and was raised by Muslim parents.

While I do have an opinion on the matter I have purposely stayed away from the topic for a few reasons. The main reason is that I am not a proponent of identity politics and am not really able to comment on, or even think about, single issue politics (in this case, “women’s issues”) without a broader look at the political, economic, and geo-political factors involved. Second, as a staunch critic of Empire,  I cannot comment on the issue without eventually commenting on the history of imperialism in the Muslim world, and that may get a bit wordy for some people’s tastes (and for a single article).

Moreover, I would not want my personal opinion on the burqa to be unwittingly used—as some female Muslim commentators’ views have been—to feed or justify some disingenuous imperial pretext of opposing and destabilizing Muslim countries in part to “liberate” oppressed Muslim women. As noted scholar and author Leila Ahmed argued in her work entitled “The Discourse of the Veil,” western imperialists (she was writing about the British Empire in Egypt) do not care about women’s rights anywhere, including in their own countries. They simply use the liberation of veiled Muslim women as part of an excuse to invade, occupy and exploit certain nations. [1]  Continue reading →

Canadian Media Attacking Trudeau for Correctly Undoing a Wrong: Why Should we be “at war” with ISIS in Syria When the West Helped Put Them there in the First Place?

23 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by in Current Events, Politics

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jets

It is being reported that one of Trudeau’s first moves as new PM has been to inform Barack Obama that Canada plans to pull its fighter jets from the air strikes on ISIS in Syria and Iraq, taking Canada out of the fight again the terrorist group. Some media outlets such as the Toronto Sun are bashing the move as dictatorial since Trudeau did not consult other members of government such as his cabinet or the Minister of Defence, both of which have yet to be officially named. While the decision is admittedly unilateral (given that the rest of the government has yet to be formed), it is still a necessary first step towards undoing some of the geopolitical follies of the Harper government.

Rather than simply lament what some see as a negative move, Canadian media should take a far step back and critically examine how ISIS came to be in Syria in the first place. This requires moving beyond myopic historical and geopolitical amnesia. The situation in Syria is very complex and is not always accurately portrayed, not least given that the US and its allies (including Canada and other NATO states) are currently, and ironically, attempting to take out a terrorist group that they helped—through military aid, training, armaments, border access through fellow NATO member Turkey, etc—put in Syria (as a way to undermine it) in the first place. While Canada was not directly involved, given the Harper regimes acquiescence to US foreign policy in the region and its agenda there, Canada is indirectly linked at the very least. Continue reading →

Justin Trudeau Takes the Reigns: He Channeled Obama in his Vows of “Hope and Change,” Will He Be as Withholding as Obama in his Post-Election Delivery?!

20 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by in Current Events, Politics

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Justin-Trudeau-Liberal-Majority

The Election is over and Justin Trudeau, leader of the Liberals and son of the late Pierre Trudeau, has taken the reigns with a majority government. Like many Canadians, I am ecstatic at the exit of Stephen Harper, who during his three mandate-term reign managed to turn Canada into a junior neo-con imperial pariah (not that Canada does not have a long imperial history, but it was greatly amped up under the America-loving Harper). So intense was the hatred of many Canadians for Harper that one has to wonder whether Justin Trudeau’s victory is  a result of his and his team’s clever campaigning or a matter of fortune and good timing; running against a man Canadians had grown to hate and were eager to see gone?!

No matter the reasons for his sweeping victory, there is one thing that struck me as eerily surreal and potentially worrying during Trudeau’s campaigning. Trudeau spoke a lot about, and promised Canadians, hope and real change. “Hope and change,” does this slogan sound familiar? It should. A then would-be presidential hopeful and political new comer, Barak Obama, promised these same things to desperate Americans back in 2008. Americans believed him and looked to him to undo the disastrous foreign and domestic policies of George W. Bush’s neo-con agenda. But while Barack talked a smooth game—much smoother than Justin—in the end, he failed to deliver either change or hope and reneged on almost every campaign promise he had made (i.e., closing Guantanamo Bay, ending the war in Iraq, fixing the economy, creating employment, empowering the poor, etc).

While Justin is not as smooth or charismatic as Obama was back then (though both shared in an appeal to youthful exuberance), he has made similar overtones–one of his campaign slogans was change together now/changer ensemble maintenant–and made certain promises (decriminalizing marijuana, for example, which is not a comprehensive policy but a token gesture) and vowed to return Canada to a purer time (Canada as global “peace keeper,” etc). It remains to be seen what he may or not improve in the next four years. Will he bring real hope and change, or should Canadians brace for an Obama-style disappointment?

Electric Sky

11 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by in Electric Universe, Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Break my hands and crush my spirit, but my ink will not run dry

Each drop a liquid dagger, which will live even when I die

Some live on through their children, others through the offspring of their mind

I’ve birthed my thoughts on paper, and pray they echo…across time…

To merge with the truth of all the ages, a truth so simple and yet sublime…

A truth that’s known to all true sages: there’s more to life than meets the eye…

A truth that’s shunned by most religions, which make humans crawl when we were meant to fly

A truth whose essence could one day save us: for there are great secrets in the Electric Sky

An electric stream that is all around us…and permeates everything, low or high

A primordial message, destined to reach us…that won’t be ignored and can’t be denied…

It’s a cosmic current…that may some day keep us, for we were not born… just to slowly die