On the Niquab/ Face veil

In October ITV ran a series entitled “Britain’s niquab”, in which they dedicated multiple programs to discussing when and wear and to what degree (Muslim) women should be aloud to cover there faces. The face veil is beginning to boarder on a national obsession. With the multi culturists championing it as a human right, the jam and Jerusalem brigade worrying about those poor women but feeling you cant really talk about it, to the BNP/UKIP/ EDL lot convinced that it is nothing more than a means to hide stolen goods and IEDs; people seem to experience something of a delight when voicing their personal opinion on this particular article of clothing.

It’s a dilemma. My first reaction is that I would never dream of telling another woman how little or how much of her body to cover or uncover. After all its her face. If she wants to hide it from public view then she has very right to do so.  Imagine if someone told you that you were no longer aloud to cover your chest. That from hear on out wearing a t-shirt would result in a severe fine or prison sentence. Surely that’s precisely how this demand for Muslim women to uncover feels to them.

It could easily be viewed as colonialist orientalism that we would demand that Muslim women remove their veils. We often seem to argue that WE know weather or not these women are oppressed better than they do. It appears to follow the same Wight-man-save –brown-woman-from-brown-man plot that had been used as a slice of the justification many wars in recent history.  Do we really have the right to declare weather or not these women are oppressed, with little ore no input from the women themselves

But then again; Faces are important. We use them to identify one another. It is far easier to tell who someone is, how they feel about you, or what you are talking about, weather or not they are lying, and so on if you can see your conversation partners face.  And I can’t help but feel that all people have the right to feel the wind on there face and to see the word more clearly than can be done through a mesh covered opening. I also question how free a decision truly is when you have been told by authority figures in your life that you will burn in hell if you don not cover your face

Then again will banning this as France has done eliminate the underlying prejudice that prompts the demand for this covering? Or will it simply alienate these women further? After all if these women are being brutally oppressed by there fathers, husbands and brothers, then what’s to stop these men simply preventing these women from leaving the house following a ban on the veil.

And what about other people who want to cover their faces? Protesters? Trick-or-treeters? These women arnt the first people in history to want the anonymity offered by a face covering.

Whilst there are times and places when viewing someone’s face is necessary and it is possible to do this with both sensitivity and security in mind, for example having a woman remove her veil with a female member of border control in private. And so yes, predictably I am with the multi culturists on this one.

Thoughts on the first meeting of Young Greens North

To start with it was absolutely excellent to meet some Greens of my own age, considering the fact that I am the youngest green in my local party; by a significant margin.

I probably enjoyed constitution writing more than people are supposed to, but the debate surrounding the writing was fantastic. It is amazing to be with like minded people so that you can debate whether to use AV or STV and exactly how much positive discrimination to include.  You know when a meeting opens with a reminder about privilege that that you’re in the right place (although they did forget to mention strait privilege). The constitution is certainly incomplete.  There was no clause guaranteeing the accessibility of the meeting locations and not enough positions of authority (2 people cannot run Young Greens North by themselves).  I hope there will be a follow up meeting to sort out the finer details: not least because the meeting was amazing.

The talks we received from 2 MEP candidates (Peter Cranie and Andrew Cooper) and Hope Not Hate.  These were all very optimistic and inspiring whilst being realistic.  They also had a fantastic discussion with us about the role of social media. Personally I think it is more important than the candidates were suggesting but that is probably a generational thing. 

Hope not Hate in particular laid out an exceptional blue print for a future of less sectarian inter-party relations and a better way for parties to interact with each other. They displayed a far better way of dealing with the rise of the far right than the methods displayed by UAF  (Unite Against Fascism) and I hope I can help them in the future.

In the evening, I was exposed to my total ignorance about campaigning .  Particularly in relation to the bigger picture and target to win seats. I was surprised to learn that, despite the fact I had been told by other members of my local party that is was not worth knocking on the doors of non voters, other young greens say that they have a roughly 50% success rate with non-voters.  There was significant talk about technology used for campaigning, which I frankly did not find interesting at all, especially since the constitution that we drafted earlier that day mentioned no role for Young Greens North in providing technology for its members.

Over all an incredibly interesting event which significantly increased my twitter following and had good sandwiches.  Hope Not Hate were in my opinion, by far the best guests there and I look forward to attending their events in the future. I also hope to spend more time with the amazing (is the green party left-wing enough for comrades?) greens I met there, who were all phenomenal people as far as I can tell.

Young Greens North seems like an awesome organisation and I am exceptionally proud to be a part of it from the start. 

Recruitment and Openness In the Green Party

On the 17^th of august, the first conference of the Youth Greens’ of the North of England will be held. I asked if I would be allowed to bring someone along and was told that said person would have to be a member of the Green Party. This took me by surprise, especially since I have been allowed to attend the social Liberal Forum Conference with the aforementioned person.

 

When a political party is in desperate need of expansion, like say…the green party (just as an arbitrary example). It is vitally important that they do not shut off potential new members. By this I mean barring them from aiding the party, attending meetings or from otherwise interacting with the party.

 

What do we think that they will have some kind of corrupting influence on our party members? That their mere presence will turn us all into Thatcherites?

 

The membership of the major parties is falling like a block of lead that has just been pushed out of a blimp and these lost souls would make ideal green recruits!! Especially since the main complaint that you hear about the “left wing” parties of the UK is that they are drifting to close to the Tories.

 

Surely a tiny baby party like the Greens should be saying to its members “bring people to our conferences!!” that way they can listen to our speakers and ask questions. It would be the ideal way to bust the myth that we are a single-issue party or a political wing of Friends of the Earth. It would allow people who are thinking about joining us to make up their minds rather than deliberating over it like I did for two years!

 

Why does a party so desperate for membership that it literally asks the local council about re-tarmacking individual streets and replacing individual post boxes respond to an offer of help from a Lib Dem, who had already helped set up a student Green branch and is an expert in social media, with a “We have pretty clear rules about this kind of thing so I’ll have to politely decline”? This makes no sense whatsoever!!

 

If we are going to grow as a party a good chunk of the events of our party ought to be open to the public. The false impression that we are a single-issue party can be wiped away with contact with the public. And that contact could take place door to door. But particularly with regards to young people, who will be far more interested in the ideology of a party than its local projects, it could also take place at party events.

Why I am Now a Green

On Wednesday I joined the green party. Whilst I have considered it before, it was a pretty impromptu decision made after a day in which I was reminded of my lack of proper political participation several times. I have long felt that the Greens are amazing, so at the end of that day I joined. The reasons why the Greens are amazing are numerous.

 

The first and foremost is there commitment to nationalisation. The greens will buy back out public transport services bit buy bit. This will provide fantastic opportunities to make these services more accessible and efficient.  It seems strange that although every one of my tory friends thinks that the trains should be re-nationalised we are the only party who promises this.

 

I also love the green party’s prioritisation of the environment. Let’s be realistic; there is always going to be some issue, which seems more significant. We are frogs being slowly boiled (I know the guy who did that experiment lobotomised the slow boiling frogs but the point still stands) and I honestly believe that parliament, with the potential to affect policy, is the best way to do this. Imagine how far we would have come if every member of “Greenpeace” or “Friends of the Earth” were in the Green Party.

 

The Greens also manage to fit together environmental policy with other areas, such as a commitment to creating jobs in green industries which not only create more jobs than there unsustainable predecessors but that can continue well into the future.

 

The Greens recognise that austerity isn’t working. To be honest it looks to me like the Tories are just using the recession as an excuse to do things they have wanted to do for ages. Raising tuition fees. Buying n private services for the NHS. Putting a means test on legal aid. The Labour Party lost all the remaining drops of respect that I had for them when they endorsed austerity. Austerity is not working. Maybe the economy has improved slightly, but food bank use is still on the rise, this “growth” has not reached those who need it most.

 

The Greens not only care about liberation issues but have put theory into practice, having more women in their leadership than any other party that I know of.

 

So overall I have joined the Greens because they care about the planet and the people. The greens are committed to building an economy, which will be sustainable into the future. Do I agree with every single thing, which the Greens stand for? No there policies on GMOs are not ideal. But I have joined because on a basic level the greens stand for fairness and Fair Is Worth Fighting For. 

You can now ask me anything

Check out my ASKFM account: http://ask.fm/RandomGirlWIA

“Am I a …” Solving Everyone’s Probelms

I decided it would be fun to type, “Am I a/an” followed by a letter into Google, choose the suggested question I feel most confidant to answer and help the word solve its problems! So here goes…

“Am I an Atheist?”

Considering the fact that you are Googling it, I would say you are an agnostic.

“Am I a Bad Person?”

If you are pondering it probably not. The fact that you are worried that you are a bad person shows that you feel remorse for any of the bad things that you have done, so despite the fact that you may have made some mistakes I think you are fundamentally a good person.

At this point so many of the “c’s” are hilarious that I’m going to do a few per letter if it takes my fancy, this is my blog after all

“Am I a Canadian citizen?”

If you were I think you would know about it, considering that you would either have been born a Canadian or would have gone though a long and difficult proses to become one.  So I’m going to say no to that.

“Am I a Communist?”

If you believe that all wealth should be held in commune (i.e. Owned by everyone), then, yes you are a communist. If you only think some things should be in commune then you are a socialist. If you think there should be no ownership or authority at all then you are an anarchist. If you are worried about being a communist/socialist then Google “red scare” and find out why people have such an issue with us.

“Am I a California resident?”

Go to your house. Turn on a GPS or map app on a smartphone. If you are in California then you are a California resident.

“Am I a Demigod?”

Yes, yes you are.

“Am I an Evil Person?”

Depends how you define “evil”

“Am I a Feminist?”

“Feminist” is a pretty large umbrella term so if you are Googling it then you probably are. Welcome to the club!

“Am I a first time buyer?”

Well have you bought before?

 

“Am I a good friend quiz”

If it troubles you then you probably are

“Am I a Hipster?”

No, hipsters may never call themselves hipsters?

“Am I an idiot?”

Probably not there are many different types of intelligence and you probably possess at least one

“Am I a Jew?”

Ask your mum. (I would just like to point out that further down the list was a request for “am a I Jew quiz”)

“Am I a kleptomaniac?”

How did you get a hold of the computer you Googled that on?

“Am I a Libertarian?”

Imagine you’re a lifeguard an you see someone drowning. Would you help them? If so then no. However if you would expect the water, the other swimmers or the drowning person themselves to sort it out, then you might just be a libertarian.

“Am I a medium?”

If you are too small for a large but to large for a small then I would highly suspect that you are a medium.

“Am I a Miss or a Ms?”

Whichever you like best.

“Am I a Nihilist?”

Was there really any point in Googling that?

“Am I not pretty enough?”

I disagree with the premise of your question.

 

“Am I a one per center?”

Statistically its unlikely, but its not being in the one per cent which is important, it is how you react to being in the one per cent.

“Am I an organ donor?”

I don’t know whom you should ask about this but I doubt its Google.

“Am I a Panda or a Dog”

Either way I’m impressed that you can type.

“Am I quitter?”
Quitting is an action not a character trait. Despite the fact that coaches and teachers will endlessly repeat “winners never quit and quitters never win”, this is an overgeneralization. Sometimes quitting is an integral part of winning. For example a General may choose to concede a battle, which s/he is loosening, in order to preserve the lives of soldiers to win the war. Or an author might stop writing one book in order to start on a better idea. Giving up on everything will reap no rewards, but neither will sticking with everything. You need to find a balance.

 

“Am I a recluse?”

If you’re wondering then you’re probably somewhere on the spectrum but bare in mind you get to decide weather you are going to be a recluse or not.

“Am I a stalker?”

If you need to ask, you’re treading a dangerous line.

“Am I tomboy?”

Don’t try to slot your personality into a shiny box. The box isn’t real, it wont make you happy and it’s a waste of time.

“Am I a unicorn?”

Seriously?

“Am I a unicorn quiz”

Oh my … Seriously?!

“Am I a virgin”

I’m speaking from a place of little experience but I’d say it really depends what you define as sex. “Virginity” seems to me like a social construct coming from an era when women were seen as property. A sort of way of saying “I have one woman here … unused!”. The way we see the loss virginity is also very hetronormative, most people see it as “penis in vagina” but that basically implies that lesbians, gays and intersex people can never loose their virginity. Witch is stupid. So I’ll say it’s arbitrary. I once heard someone say, “Virginity is a concept invented by men, who thought that their penises were so powerful that they could fundamentally change who a woman is”

“Am I a writer?”

If you want to be one then probably. I’m sure you can at least grow into one.

“Am I a wolf?”

I haven’t posted them all because it would get boring but the number of people wondering what species they are is starting to concern me. I think if you are using Google you are at least part of the Ape family.

Only one thing came up for x and I’m not entirely sure what it means so I’m going to skip it

“Am I a YouTube partner?”
You have to sign a contract- you would know

“Am I a zombie?”
You might be a metaphorical zombie, if you spend all you’re time on your phone or the Internet or watching TV

End notes: There you go, I did realise around “R” that I should have gone for a more open type of question but it was too far gone by then. I was seriously struck by the number of people who wanted the Internet to tell them what their religion or political ideology is or indeed where they lived. I was tempted with all of these but it would have become boring considering that there was one for almost every letter. All I can say to these is, if you don’t know what religion you are then you’re not a strong enough believer for it to even matter, you can probably ask your next door neighbour about where you live and as for political ideology- this should help – http://www.politicalcompass.org/test. I was waaaaaaay down in the bottom left corner. 

VICTORY

BOOM ! We win!!!! Disney faces backlash over new “sexy” Merida; pulls new image from web site as a result. http://rebeccahains.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/disney-faces-backlash/

Lenin was still…

Lenin was still in bed, and the kindly expression of his face was tinged with a justifiable amazement. ~ Leon Trotsky

sometimes things are just better if you take them out of context

Some Open Letters

Dear Right Wingers on the Internet

I am not going to explain this to you again.  The Council of Europe and the European Union are two entirely separate bodies. They have nothing to do with each other. I am not going to debate you if you cant be bothered googling the think we are debating.

When you are angry about human rights legislation because you think that deporting a few suspected terrorists would be worth giving up your own “right to privacy and a family life” or “right to a fair trial” you are angry with the Council of Europe, who enforce the European Convention on Human Rights, not the European Union who have nothing to do with it.

When you are angry about immigration, you are angry with the EU and it is totally irrelevant to bring up any recent human rights cases, for reasons mentioned above.

Sincerely,

Random Girl

Dear BBC,

In some of your coverage of Thatcher’s death one of your reporters said “Privatisation isn’t a political issue anymore, its just something governments do” – I would like to know who decided this and when.

Sincerely,

Random Girl

Dear Teacup making companies,

Go bigger.

Sincerely,

Random Girl

Dear Governments,

It has come to my attention that a man named Nickola Tesla invented a way to make electricity transmittable through radio waves, this would be more efficient and there wouldn’t be wires everywhere. However this was never put into practice as anyone could put up satellite and get electricity from it.  This means it would be difficult for companies to make a profit from it. The solution to this problem is to bring electricity back under state ownership and have everyone pay into it through tax.

An I am sure there are many other problems which could be solved with nationalization, like the price of trains, and if trains were cheaper fewer people would drive, and if fewer people dove the roads would be cheaper to maintain the roads, and since you already pay for the tracks I think this could work out well.

Stop acting like privatisation is the only way, please.

Sincerely,

Random Girl

PS.  Do haulage companies pay extra to use the roads considering they do the most damage to them? Because they should.

Dear Fashion/beauty/celebrity Magazines,

Did you know that the average female experiences a drop in self-esteem after just 8 minuets of reading you? You should probably do something about that. Actually what you will probably do is make a concerted effort to make that time smaller, considering almost all of your advertisements are for plastic surgery, diet products and make up. You are in the business of creating false illnesses in order to sell a cure. I have had enough.

Sincerely,

Random Girl

P.S. Did you know that cellulite was considered attractive until Vogue said it was a disease?

Dear Nick Clegg,

What happened?

Sincerely,

Random Girl

Dear Exams,

Did you know a Chinese teacher invented you to make more money out of his school?  The idea was that people would pay to come to the school and then pay to take the exam. I am adding you to the long list of problems with capitalism.

Sincerely,

Random Girl

Dear Internet,

I’m not sure how I feel about you, you are a mass of contradictions.

You increase potential productivity whilst reducing, for many people, actual productivity.

You make it easier for people to connect with each other but all we end up with is a bunch of meaningless insults with no constructive dialog.

You make it easier for talent to be discovered, but you ruin simple mediocrity. For example the case of a girl who’s parents paid for her to make a music video for a Bat Mitzvah present and ended up being called out as “the death of music”. (That’s all the Friday song was, a Bat Mitzvah treat, no one was calling her the next big sensation and instead of enjoying it, as she should have, she ended up being bullied to the point of dropping out of school)

And yet I cannot imagine my life without you, who would I be without fandoms and Nerdfightaria? Would I have ever gotten into politics without the Young Turks? Would I be more comfortable with my body without Internet advertisements? Or less without Laci Green?

To tell the truth weather you’re good for me or not I can no longer imagine life without you.  To tell the truth, sad as it may be I no longer know how to research without Google, or how to make plans without Facebook.

Sci-Fi has long predicted an age of cyborgs, and since many people can no longer function without computers, who’s to say we haven’t arrived?

All my love,

Random Girl

Ding-Dong-Play-The-Song

“Ding dong the witch is dead” reached number 2 in the BBC charts. Yet the BBC refuse to play it during their charts due to the fact that it has been purchased mainly in celebration of Margret Thatcher’s Death… and so the white washing continues.

This decision by the BBC is, in my opinion, completely unacceptable.  I go back and forth on the issue of celebrating the death of Margret Thatcher. On the one hand she embodied an ideology, which I despise on a molecular level, however at the point of her death she was a woman in her 80s who couldn’t even remember her time in office.

But weather or not it is “polite” or “shows decorum” to listen to this song in celebration is irrelevant. The BCC is not supposed to act politically and in doing this they are acting politically, endorsing an ideology, which many love and many others hate. Some people are mourning like it was Diana others are celebrating like it was Hitler and many more are somewhere in the middle. The latter two have been accused of a “lacking respect” any time they open their mouths this past week.

The people who work on this show may have thought that they would have exempt themselves from any political hubbub, but it seems their wish has not been granted. This is an issue of free speech and if a branch of UK politics manages to get a song to number 2 in the charts it should be played in the charts show

Lets not forget the campaign against this song is coming from the conservative wing of the country (apart from Nigel Farage, who, to my surprise, believes the song should be played), most of whom despise any form of political correctness and think the Levinson report went to far.

The target audience of the charts show is 16-24 year olds. My age group. We have seen the fawning on the BBC. The “I disagreed with her but I respected her conviction’s” the “Britain wouldn’t be the same without hers” my generation deserves to hear the other side of the story and this is nothing more than a cover up.

The carts show is first and foremost a historical record. Its entertainment value is of secondary function. It is used to track shifts in our musical tastes and the rise and fall of superstars.  When people look back on Thatcher’s legacy it is important to know that “ding dong the witch is dead” reached number 2 the week she died. It’s an important element of the way she was perceived. There has been a despicable white wash, a glorification of her legacy. People have been on the telly talking as if there isn’t a single person left who doesn’t agree with her ideas. It’s mental.

The BBC should do their job and just play the goddamn song. Regardless of if it shows decorum or is respectful or if it isn’t.