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二十年轉變
是可大可小
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
名譽殺害陋俗案: 父母兄三被告一級謀殺罪名成立 / Honour Killing Without Honour: The Shafia Trial
維基百科: 名譽殺害（Honour killing）是指女性被一個或以上家族、部族或社群男性成員以維護家族名聲的理由殺害，這類事件往往發生在封建制度的地區。聯合國人口基金估計，每年在世界各地發生的名譽殺害事件可能高達5,000件。
The Canadian Press Sunday Jan. 29, 2012 6:50 PM ET
KINGSTON, Ont. — Three members of an Afghanistan-born Montreal family were defiant Sunday in the face of life in prison and harsh condemnation for the murders of three daughters and a co-wife apparently motivated by what the judge called their "twisted concept of honour."
A jury took 15 hours to find Mohammad Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in a so-called mass honour killing that has captivated Canadians from coast to coast, and touched off post-911 criticism of Muslim culture.
The three immediately pronounced the verdicts as unjust, but the judge was unmoved, cutting right to the core of the cultural cloud that hung over this case.
"It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable, more honourless crime," Ontario Superior Court Judge Robert Maranger said.
"The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honour...that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."
The trial heard evidence over many weeks about the bizarre divide in the Shafia family, in which the patriarch struck fear in the hearts of some of his children, though often being away on business Hamed acted as the surrogate disciplinarian. The three murdered daughters thumbed their noses at the family rules. The children they did not kill were the ones ratting out their sisters to their parents for bad behaviour, court heard.
It was notions of honour, directly tied to women's sexuality and general control over their behaviour, that led the Shafias to kill, court heard, in an effort to cleanse them of the shame they perceived their daughters to have brought upon them.
The concept is in stark contrast to Canadian values, the Crown said. The idea that such thinking had not only been brewing in one of Canada's most cosmopolitan cities, but that this "honour" apparently superseded the value of life for the Shafias has shocked many.
But investigators who pored over the details of the disturbing inner workings of the Shafia family and examined the tiniest pieces of evidence from the crime scene urged people Sunday to remember the victims.
All that sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, their father's childless first wife in a polygamous marriage wanted was freedom, and it cost them their lives, court heard.
Their bodies were found June 30, 2009, in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ont., in a multiple murder the Crown asserted was committed to restore family honour, lost when the girls began dating and acting out. Rona was simply disposed of, the Crown said.
The jury's verdict indicates the seven women and five men believe Shafia, Yahya and Hamed plotted to kill their troublesome family members, dumping their bodies in a canal and staging it -- albeit clumsily -- to look like an accident.
The three now-convicted multiple murderers did not accept their fates quietly.
"We are not criminal, we are not murderer, we didn't commit the murder and this is unjust," Shafia said through an interpreter when the judge asked if he had anything to say.
Yahya, who spent a withering six days on the stand testifying in her own defence, was similarly assertive.
"Your honourable justice, this is not just," she said, also through an interpreter. "I am not a murderer, and I am a mother -- a mother!"
Hamed said in English: "Sir, I did not drown my sisters anywhere."
During the three-month trial Hamed was the only one of the three never to betray any emotion, but as it became clear he could face life in prison, the young man put his head in his hands and hunched over in the prisoners' box while his parents rubbed his back. Yahya soon began to cry.
First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance to apply for parole for 25 years. The family has been behind bars since their arrests on July 22, 2009.
Outside court, Crown attorney Gerard Laarhuis said the verdict is a reflection of Canadian values that he hopes will resonate.
"This jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own family in the most troubling of circumstances," he said.
"This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy," Laarhuis said to cheers of approval from onlookers.
Laarhuis was interrupted in his remarks by Moosa Hadi, a central figure in the case who was a fervent supporter of the Shafias. He sent reporters and the lead investigator emails stating that the prosecution of the family was criminal and because of it he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"This is a lie, this is absolutely a lie," Hadi shouted over Laarhuis before being pulled away by tactical police officers. "This is a miscarriage of the justice."
Members of the public listening to Laarhuis' statement, many of whom have attended the trial from the Oct. 20 start, shouted Hadi down and cheered as Laarhuis continued.
Lead investigator Det. Sgt. Chris Scott praised Crown lawyers for allowing the four women to finally be heard.
"They gave these victims a voice when they had none and so I appreciate their work," he said outside court.
Shafia's lawyer, Peter Kemp, said after the verdicts that he believes the comments his client made on wiretaps calling his dead daughters whores and saying there is no value of life without honour, may have weighed more heavily on the jury's minds than the physical evidence in the case.
"He wasn't convicted for what he did," Kemp said. "He was convicted for what he said."
Hamed's lawyer, Patrick McCann, said he was disappointed with the verdict, and said his client will appeal and he believes the other two will as well.
"I still have a hard time understanding how the Crown theory could actually have happened," he said.
The Crown theory was that Shafia, Yahya and Hamed drowned the four victims either to the point of death or unconsciousness, placed their bodies in the car, then pushed it into the canal using the family's other vehicle. However, prosecutors couldn't prove how or where the pre-drowning happened.
The defence had said it was an accident, that they had gone for a joy ride with Zainab driving and accidentally plunged into the canal with Hamed watching, although he didn't call police. Hamed's lawyer told the jury his client was only guilty of being stupid, but the jury clearly thought otherwise.
Source of text: Guilty verdict in Shafia murder trial | CTV News
Related Lotusandcedar article: 嫁雞隨雞,嫁狗隨狗 / Gender Equity
+++++++++ Updated 20120131 ++++++++
Islam doesn't justify 'honor murders,' experts insist
By Richard Allen Greene, CNN
(CNN) - Zainab Shafia's crime was to run off to marry a man her parents hated. Middle sister Sahar's crime was to wear revealing clothes and have secret boyfriends. Youngest sister Geeti's crime was to do badly in school and call social workers for help dealing with a family home in turmoil.
The punishment for all three teenage Canadian sisters was the same: death.
Their executioner: their brother, acting on instructions from the father to run their car off the road.
Another family member, their father's first wife in a polygamous marriage, was also killed.
Hamed Shafia, his father, Mohammed, and his mother, Tooba Mohammed Yahya, were sentenced to life in prison for murder, with Judge Robert Maranger excoriating their "twisted notion of honor, a notion of honor that is founded upon the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honor that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."
Leading Muslim thinkers wholeheartedly endorsed the Canadian judge's verdict, insisting that "honor murders" had no place and no support in Islam.
"There is nothing in the Quran that justifies honor killings. There is nothing that says you should kill for the honor of the family," said Taj Hargey, director of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford in England.
"This idea that 'somehow a girl has besmirched our honor and therefore the thing to do is kill her' is bizarre, and Muslims should stop using this defense," he said, arguing that the practice is cultural, not religious in origin.
"You cannot say this is what Islam approves of. You can say this is what their culture approves of," he said.
The Shafia family is originally from Afghanistan.
Experts say honor murders take place in many parts of the world.
"It's definitely a problem that happens in many different places: the Middle East, Pakistan, Bangladesh and among immigrant communities in North America," said Nadya Khalife, a researcher on women's rights in the Arab world for Human Rights Watch.
Several Arab countries and territories, including Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Yemen and the Palestinian territories, have laws providing lesser sentences for honor murders than for other murders, Human Rights Watch says.
Egypt and Jordan also have laws that have been interpreted to allow reduced sentences for honor crimes, the group says.
Reliable figures of the number of honor murders are hard to come by, Khalife said, but she pointed to a United Nations Population Fund estimate of 5,000 per year.
Khalife agreed that the practice should not be blamed on Islam.
"It's not linked to religion; it's more cultural," she said. "There have been several Islamic scholars who have issued fatwas against honor killing."
Mohammed Shafia, who denied murder, said himself in court that Islam did not justify honor murders.
"In our religion, a person who kills his wife or daughter, there is nothing more dishonorable," he testified.
But Shafia was heard condemning his dead children in wiretapped conversations played in court.
"May the devil defecate on their graves! This is what a daughter should be? Would a daughter be such a whore?" he said.
Hargey, the director of the Muslim Educational Centre, said violence was sometimes the result of painful transition.
"Muslims are in a state of flux," he said.
"They are between two worlds: the ancient world and the new technological age," he said. "Women are getting rights and the ability to choose their own spouses. The family in Canada didn't know how to respond to this: the conflict between the discipline of children and the new reality."
Irshad Manji, the author of "Allah, Liberty and Love: Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom," said there was another conflict at work in honor murders, a term CNN uses in preference to "honor killings" because the latter phrase does not properly describe the crime.
It is "a tribal tradition that emphasizes the family or the tribe or the community over the individual," she said.
Although the practice may not be Islamic, she said, not all Muslims understand the distinction.
"It is a problem within Islam because of how Muslims often confuse culture and religion," she said. "It's Muslims who have to learn to separate culture and religion. If we don't, Islam will continue to get the bad name that it gets."
But one vocal British campaigner against honor violence points out that not all the crimes are perpetrated by Muslims.
Jasvinder Sanghera, who was the victim of a forced marriage, is not Muslim; she is Sikh.
"Significant cases are happening within South Asian communities, be it Pakistani, Indian, Sikh, Muslim, Kurdish, Iranian, Middle Eastern communities," she said.
"And we have to recognize that because the statistics don't lie. I am not standing here trying to embarrass those communities. But equally, those communities should be ashamed because this is happening in their community and they are not taking a stand," she said.
On the other hand, honor murders are not a problem in Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population.
"No such a practice can be found among Indonesian Muslims," said Azyumardi Azra, the director of the graduate school at the State Islamic University in Jakarta, Indonesia.
" 'Honor killing' is, I believe, a cultural problem among Arab and South Asian Muslims. I don't think that kind of practice has an Islamic basis," he said.
Although women and girls make up the overwhelming number of victims, there have been at least some male victims, including Ahmet Yildiz, a gay Turkish man whose fugitive father is the main suspect in his 2008 shooting death.
Britain has had about a dozen honor murders per year for the past several years, said Ghayasuddin Siddiqui of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain.
He, too, said the crimes were not justified by Islam.
"This comes from tribal customs where the father - not both parents - see children as their property. A girl decides to marry somebody of whom their parents do not approve, and they conspire and find some way to kill and dispose of this body," he said. "This is a kind of misplaced shame that parents feel that their daughter has decided to marry somebody of her choosing, not theirs."
Britain's Crown Prosecution Service has an expert devoted to prosecuting honor-based violence, Nazir Afzal.
Convicting perpetrators can be difficult, he said.
"There is a wall of silence around this, and people are not prepared to talk," he said.
But Afzal insisted that it was "absolutely important that you bring every single person to justice because you want to deter other people from doing it."
And along with the Islamic scholars and human rights advocates, he rejected out of hand the idea that religion justified it.
"At the end of the day, murder is murder. There is no faith on Earth, no community on Earth that justifies this," he said.
"Abrahamic faiths say 'Thou shalt not kill,' " he pointed out. "At the end of the day, nobody should die for this."
Source:
後語: 各個宗敎領袖丶社会工作人員丶和很多學者專家都同意,「名譽殺害」在文明社会是嚴重犯罪行為, 是不可以用宗敎為籍口掩飾。
The Canadian Press Sunday Jan. 29, 2012 6:50 PM ET
KINGSTON, Ont. — Three members of an Afghanistan-born Montreal family were defiant Sunday in the face of life in prison and harsh condemnation for the murders of three daughters and a co-wife apparently motivated by what the judge called their "twisted concept of honour."
A jury took 15 hours to find Mohammad Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in a so-called mass honour killing that has captivated Canadians from coast to coast, and touched off post-911 criticism of Muslim culture.
The three immediately pronounced the verdicts as unjust, but the judge was unmoved, cutting right to the core of the cultural cloud that hung over this case.
"It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable, more honourless crime," Ontario Superior Court Judge Robert Maranger said.
"The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honour...that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."
The trial heard evidence over many weeks about the bizarre divide in the Shafia family, in which the patriarch struck fear in the hearts of some of his children, though often being away on business Hamed acted as the surrogate disciplinarian. The three murdered daughters thumbed their noses at the family rules. The children they did not kill were the ones ratting out their sisters to their parents for bad behaviour, court heard.
It was notions of honour, directly tied to women's sexuality and general control over their behaviour, that led the Shafias to kill, court heard, in an effort to cleanse them of the shame they perceived their daughters to have brought upon them.
The concept is in stark contrast to Canadian values, the Crown said. The idea that such thinking had not only been brewing in one of Canada's most cosmopolitan cities, but that this "honour" apparently superseded the value of life for the Shafias has shocked many.
But investigators who pored over the details of the disturbing inner workings of the Shafia family and examined the tiniest pieces of evidence from the crime scene urged people Sunday to remember the victims.
All that sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, their father's childless first wife in a polygamous marriage wanted was freedom, and it cost them their lives, court heard.
Their bodies were found June 30, 2009, in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ont., in a multiple murder the Crown asserted was committed to restore family honour, lost when the girls began dating and acting out. Rona was simply disposed of, the Crown said.
The jury's verdict indicates the seven women and five men believe Shafia, Yahya and Hamed plotted to kill their troublesome family members, dumping their bodies in a canal and staging it -- albeit clumsily -- to look like an accident.
The three now-convicted multiple murderers did not accept their fates quietly.
"We are not criminal, we are not murderer, we didn't commit the murder and this is unjust," Shafia said through an interpreter when the judge asked if he had anything to say.
Yahya, who spent a withering six days on the stand testifying in her own defence, was similarly assertive.
"Your honourable justice, this is not just," she said, also through an interpreter. "I am not a murderer, and I am a mother -- a mother!"
Hamed said in English: "Sir, I did not drown my sisters anywhere."
During the three-month trial Hamed was the only one of the three never to betray any emotion, but as it became clear he could face life in prison, the young man put his head in his hands and hunched over in the prisoners' box while his parents rubbed his back. Yahya soon began to cry.
First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance to apply for parole for 25 years. The family has been behind bars since their arrests on July 22, 2009.
Outside court, Crown attorney Gerard Laarhuis said the verdict is a reflection of Canadian values that he hopes will resonate.
"This jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own family in the most troubling of circumstances," he said.
"This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy," Laarhuis said to cheers of approval from onlookers.
Laarhuis was interrupted in his remarks by Moosa Hadi, a central figure in the case who was a fervent supporter of the Shafias. He sent reporters and the lead investigator emails stating that the prosecution of the family was criminal and because of it he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"This is a lie, this is absolutely a lie," Hadi shouted over Laarhuis before being pulled away by tactical police officers. "This is a miscarriage of the justice."
Members of the public listening to Laarhuis' statement, many of whom have attended the trial from the Oct. 20 start, shouted Hadi down and cheered as Laarhuis continued.
Lead investigator Det. Sgt. Chris Scott praised Crown lawyers for allowing the four women to finally be heard.
"They gave these victims a voice when they had none and so I appreciate their work," he said outside court.
Shafia's lawyer, Peter Kemp, said after the verdicts that he believes the comments his client made on wiretaps calling his dead daughters whores and saying there is no value of life without honour, may have weighed more heavily on the jury's minds than the physical evidence in the case.
"He wasn't convicted for what he did," Kemp said. "He was convicted for what he said."
Hamed's lawyer, Patrick McCann, said he was disappointed with the verdict, and said his client will appeal and he believes the other two will as well.
"I still have a hard time understanding how the Crown theory could actually have happened," he said.
The Crown theory was that Shafia, Yahya and Hamed drowned the four victims either to the point of death or unconsciousness, placed their bodies in the car, then pushed it into the canal using the family's other vehicle. However, prosecutors couldn't prove how or where the pre-drowning happened.
The defence had said it was an accident, that they had gone for a joy ride with Zainab driving and accidentally plunged into the canal with Hamed watching, although he didn't call police. Hamed's lawyer told the jury his client was only guilty of being stupid, but the jury clearly thought otherwise.
Source of text: Guilty verdict in Shafia murder trial | CTV News
Related Lotusandcedar article: 嫁雞隨雞,嫁狗隨狗 / Gender Equity
References:
* Wikipedia / Honor_killing
* Wikipedia / 名譽殺害（Honour killing）+++++++++ Updated 20120131 ++++++++
Islam doesn't justify 'honor murders,' experts insist
By Richard Allen Greene, CNN
(CNN) - Zainab Shafia's crime was to run off to marry a man her parents hated. Middle sister Sahar's crime was to wear revealing clothes and have secret boyfriends. Youngest sister Geeti's crime was to do badly in school and call social workers for help dealing with a family home in turmoil.
The punishment for all three teenage Canadian sisters was the same: death.
Their executioner: their brother, acting on instructions from the father to run their car off the road.
Another family member, their father's first wife in a polygamous marriage, was also killed.
Hamed Shafia, his father, Mohammed, and his mother, Tooba Mohammed Yahya, were sentenced to life in prison for murder, with Judge Robert Maranger excoriating their "twisted notion of honor, a notion of honor that is founded upon the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honor that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."
Leading Muslim thinkers wholeheartedly endorsed the Canadian judge's verdict, insisting that "honor murders" had no place and no support in Islam.
"There is nothing in the Quran that justifies honor killings. There is nothing that says you should kill for the honor of the family," said Taj Hargey, director of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford in England.
"This idea that 'somehow a girl has besmirched our honor and therefore the thing to do is kill her' is bizarre, and Muslims should stop using this defense," he said, arguing that the practice is cultural, not religious in origin.
"You cannot say this is what Islam approves of. You can say this is what their culture approves of," he said.
The Shafia family is originally from Afghanistan.
Experts say honor murders take place in many parts of the world.
"It's definitely a problem that happens in many different places: the Middle East, Pakistan, Bangladesh and among immigrant communities in North America," said Nadya Khalife, a researcher on women's rights in the Arab world for Human Rights Watch.
Several Arab countries and territories, including Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Yemen and the Palestinian territories, have laws providing lesser sentences for honor murders than for other murders, Human Rights Watch says.
Egypt and Jordan also have laws that have been interpreted to allow reduced sentences for honor crimes, the group says.
Reliable figures of the number of honor murders are hard to come by, Khalife said, but she pointed to a United Nations Population Fund estimate of 5,000 per year.
Khalife agreed that the practice should not be blamed on Islam.
"It's not linked to religion; it's more cultural," she said. "There have been several Islamic scholars who have issued fatwas against honor killing."
Mohammed Shafia, who denied murder, said himself in court that Islam did not justify honor murders.
"In our religion, a person who kills his wife or daughter, there is nothing more dishonorable," he testified.
But Shafia was heard condemning his dead children in wiretapped conversations played in court.
"May the devil defecate on their graves! This is what a daughter should be? Would a daughter be such a whore?" he said.
Hargey, the director of the Muslim Educational Centre, said violence was sometimes the result of painful transition.
"Muslims are in a state of flux," he said.
"They are between two worlds: the ancient world and the new technological age," he said. "Women are getting rights and the ability to choose their own spouses. The family in Canada didn't know how to respond to this: the conflict between the discipline of children and the new reality."
Irshad Manji, the author of "Allah, Liberty and Love: Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom," said there was another conflict at work in honor murders, a term CNN uses in preference to "honor killings" because the latter phrase does not properly describe the crime.
It is "a tribal tradition that emphasizes the family or the tribe or the community over the individual," she said.
Although the practice may not be Islamic, she said, not all Muslims understand the distinction.
"It is a problem within Islam because of how Muslims often confuse culture and religion," she said. "It's Muslims who have to learn to separate culture and religion. If we don't, Islam will continue to get the bad name that it gets."
But one vocal British campaigner against honor violence points out that not all the crimes are perpetrated by Muslims.
Jasvinder Sanghera, who was the victim of a forced marriage, is not Muslim; she is Sikh.
"Significant cases are happening within South Asian communities, be it Pakistani, Indian, Sikh, Muslim, Kurdish, Iranian, Middle Eastern communities," she said.
"And we have to recognize that because the statistics don't lie. I am not standing here trying to embarrass those communities. But equally, those communities should be ashamed because this is happening in their community and they are not taking a stand," she said.
On the other hand, honor murders are not a problem in Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population.
"No such a practice can be found among Indonesian Muslims," said Azyumardi Azra, the director of the graduate school at the State Islamic University in Jakarta, Indonesia.
" 'Honor killing' is, I believe, a cultural problem among Arab and South Asian Muslims. I don't think that kind of practice has an Islamic basis," he said.
Although women and girls make up the overwhelming number of victims, there have been at least some male victims, including Ahmet Yildiz, a gay Turkish man whose fugitive father is the main suspect in his 2008 shooting death.
Britain has had about a dozen honor murders per year for the past several years, said Ghayasuddin Siddiqui of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain.
He, too, said the crimes were not justified by Islam.
"This comes from tribal customs where the father - not both parents - see children as their property. A girl decides to marry somebody of whom their parents do not approve, and they conspire and find some way to kill and dispose of this body," he said. "This is a kind of misplaced shame that parents feel that their daughter has decided to marry somebody of her choosing, not theirs."
Britain's Crown Prosecution Service has an expert devoted to prosecuting honor-based violence, Nazir Afzal.
Convicting perpetrators can be difficult, he said.
"There is a wall of silence around this, and people are not prepared to talk," he said.
But Afzal insisted that it was "absolutely important that you bring every single person to justice because you want to deter other people from doing it."
And along with the Islamic scholars and human rights advocates, he rejected out of hand the idea that religion justified it.
"At the end of the day, murder is murder. There is no faith on Earth, no community on Earth that justifies this," he said.
"Abrahamic faiths say 'Thou shalt not kill,' " he pointed out. "At the end of the day, nobody should die for this."
Source:
Richard Allen Greene - Newsdesk editor, The CNN Wire
Shafia trial: Six perspectives on ‘honour’ killings in Canada
Jan 30, 2012 – 7:39 PM ET | Last Updated: Jan 30, 2012 11:00 PM ET
Dr. Amin Muhammad
Professor of psychiatry at Memorial University in Newfoundland
Professor of Psychiatry Memorial University of Newfoundland
Dr. Amin A. Muhammad
Honour killings have been on the rise in Canada over the past decade, says the professor of psychiatry at Memorial University in Newfoundland. There have been more than a dozen cases since 2002, which is actually very little compared to the United States and the United Kingdom, which have seen hundreds of such killings since then, he says. The Pakistan-born professor thinks news of the Shafia trial outcome will ripple internationally, and warn potential immigrants that the practice won’t be tolerated here. And, he hopes, the outcome will make people more vigilant now. “So many people approach for help and intervention in the past were not taken seriously, even those potential victims that don’t have the courage to come and speak openly about it,” he says. “Now at least it will give them a little courage.”
Nazira Naz Tareen
Founder and past president, Ottawa Muslim Women’s Organization
Ashley Fraser / Postmedia News files
Nazira Naz Tareen
While the Shafia family’s Muslim faith played a role in the criminal proceedings, note that Islam does not condone killings in order to preserve honour, says the India-born founder and past president of the Ottawa Muslim Women’s Organization. “The Quaran says if you kill one human being, it’s like you’ve killed all of humanity,” she says. “If you save one human being, it’s like you’ve saved all of humanity.” The Shafias committed murder and “it’s totally, totally cultural and it’s totally against the teachings of Islam.” Since many Muslims read the Quaran in Arabic, they may not glean that the Prophet Muhammad actually afforded women more rights than men and that children no longer answer to parents in their teen years —they answer to God, she says. Most countries are misinterpreting Sharia law to mean the Prophet’s urging to “protect” women really means to control them, she adds.
Raheel Raza
Activist and author of Their Jihad, Not My Jihad
Courtesy Raheel Raza
Raheel Raza
Their communities so failed Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafia, aged 19, 17 and 13 and Rona Amir Mohammad, 53, that Ms. Raza wonders if they would have received help had they been four white women instead of four Afghan-Canadians. “Was this political correctness to a painful degree?” asks the Toronto-based activist and author of Their Jihad, Not My Jihad. It’s time to stop being so sensitive in the name of preserving multiculturalism, she says.. “Immigrants bring this excess baggage with them and as a community, our biggest problem is that we remain in denial and we can’t address the issues,” says the Pakistan-born Ms. Raza. “What this verdict has done is open the door to a great deal of debate and discussion. I think we have a long, long way to go.” While Canada wants its immigrants to integrate, when there are problems, they tend to be “ghettoized,” she says, and, with a mind for sensitivity, it’s “their culture, their problem…But what is sensitivity in comparison to four lives?”
Baldev Mutta
CEO of the Punjabi Community Health Centre in Brampton, Ont.
Peter J. Thompson/National Post files
Baldev Mutta
“I think it’s more of a men’s issue because the honour we talk about is predominately perpetuated by men,” says the CEO of the Punjabi Community Health Centre in Brampton, Ont. Every Saturday, 25 to 40 South Asian men gather in a men’s group and discuss the challenges of raising a family in a liberal Canada that functions differently from the traditional society they left behind. “There hasn’t been an opportunity for men to have a discussion around what constitutes an honour [here in Canada],” says Mr. Mutta, who emmigrated from India. He does get pushback from those who feel he’s giving his community a bad name by speaking out, but he’s more encouraged by the men in his sessions who are reframing their worldview. “We never shame men, we want them to own that every man makes mistakes.”
Alia Hogben
Executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women
Julie Oliver / Postmedia News files
Alia Hogben
The Kingston, Ont.-based executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women has trouble with the word “honour killing.” She prefers to call it “customary killing” since it’s maintaining patriarchal customs. But the Shafia case went above and beyond that to blatant, outright “femicide” —and it reveals a greater need for gender equality. “If you look deeper, that’s what this issue is. Why do men think, in this patriarchy, that they have the control and the power to kill somebody because…[they think] they are doing the wrong thing or are deviant?” She believes these kinds of killings can happen in any culture that’s dominated by men. “Do you think the Mormons, who have been here for generations, don’t have patriarchy?” she asks. “Anywhere there’s patriarchy, which allows you to say ‘Men have to be the protectors and guardians of women’ is heading for trouble.” Despite cases like the Shafias’, she believes Canada is doing a good job to combat these kinds of killings. Police and social workers are better educated and family law has been brought up to date.
Shenny Karmali
Child and Family Therapist
Handout
Shenny Karmali
When Ms. Karmali looks at the Shafia murder case, she doesn’t see an honour killing. Rather, she sees a complicated stew of emotions, expectations, conflict and a father well versed in the ways of the Western world, having lived in Australia and elsewhere before coming to Canada. She also understands where the shame and embarrassment element comes from. After all, she sees it routinely in her office, as a registered social worker, child, marriage and family therapist in Calgary who counsels many immigrant families who seek her out because of her East-African/Muslim background. “That still doesn’t justify the behaviour to me. There’s nothing to justify abuse,” she says. Even when considering cultural background, safety is always the most important thing. “Oftentimes what I will talk with families about is good intentions. Usually, I think those [strict actions] come from a place of good intentions, but sometimes there’s a disconnect.”
(Source: National Post http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/30/shafia-trial-six-perspectives-on-honour-killing/ )
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
羊毛衫樂隊: 【早醒早覺】 歌詞 / The Cardigans: "Rise & Shine" with lyrics
"Rise and Shine"
Singers: The Cardigans
Songwriters: Magnus Johan Sveningsson, Peter Anders Svensson
Lyrics:
Rise & shine
Rise & shine
I want to be alone for a while
I want earth to breath to me
I want the waves to grow loud
I want the sun to bleed down
To bleed down
See the waves go down
See the moon alone
I raise my head and whisper
Rise and shine
Rise and shine
Rise and shine my sister
Rise and shine
Rise and shine
Rise and shine my sister
Rise and shine
Rise and shine
Rise and shine my sister
Rise and shine
Rise and shine
I want to see the wounded moon
I want the sea to break through
I want it all to be gone tomorrow
So I've come to say goodbye
Say goodbye
Say go away
Go down
Say don't move along
I raise my head and whisper
Rise and shine
Rise and shine
Rise and shine my sister
Rise and shine
Rise and shine my sister
Rise and shine
Rise and shine my sister
Rise and shine
Rise and shine
Rise and shine
Rise and shine
Rise and shine my sister
Rise and shine
Rise and shine
Rise and shine
Rise and shine
Monday, January 23, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
維基百科2012年1月l8日停刋, 抗議美國「停止網上盜版」草案（SOPA） / English Wikipedia anti-SOPA blackout on June 18, 2012
維基百科宣佈世界各地的英語維基，在1月18日（星期三）05:00 UTC開始，停刋24小時。這個行動是抗議美國政府的兩份立法草議案: 在美國國會眾議院的停止網上盜版法案（SOPA），和美國參議院的知識產權保護法案 （PIPA）。維基媒體基金會相信如果這兩項法案獲得通過，互聯網的自由和開放體系將受嚴重損害。（請閱讀維基媒體基金會以下的聲明）
To: English Wikipedia Readers and Community
From: Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director
Date: January 16, 2012
Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate – that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.
This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it’s a decision that wasn’t lightly made. Here’s how it’s been described by the three Wikipedia administrators who formally facilitated the community’s discussion. From the public statement, signed by User:NuclearWarfare, User:Risker and User:Billinghurst: It is the opinion of the English Wikipedia community that both of these bills, if passed, would be devastating to the free and open web.
Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a "blackout" of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.
On careful review of this discussion, the closing administrators note the broad-based support for action from Wikipedians around the world, not just from within the United States. The primary objection to a global blackout came from those who preferred that the blackout be limited to readers from the United States, with the rest of the world seeing a simple banner notice instead. We also noted that roughly 55% of those supporting a blackout preferred that it be a global one, with many pointing to concerns about similar legislation in other nations.
In making this decision, Wikipedians will be criticized for seeming to abandon neutrality to take a political position. That’s a real, legitimate issue. We want people to trust Wikipedia, not worry that it is trying to propagandize them.
But although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not. As Wikimedia Foundation board member Kat Walsh wrote on one of our mailing lists recently,
We depend on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both information and expression. For the most part, Wikimedia projects are organizing and summarizing and collecting the world’s knowledge. We’re putting it in context, and showing people how to make to sense of it.
But that knowledge has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia. Where you can only speak if you have sufficient resources to fight legal challenges, or if your views are pre-approved by someone who does, the same narrow set of ideas already popular will continue to be all anyone has meaningful access to.
The decision to shut down the English Wikipedia wasn’t made by me; it was made by editors, through a consensus decision-making process. But I support it.
Like Kat and the rest of the Wikimedia Foundation Board, I have increasingly begun to think of Wikipedia’s public voice, and the goodwill people have for Wikipedia, as a resource that wants to be used for the benefit of the public. Readers trust Wikipedia because they know that despite its faults, Wikipedia’s heart is in the right place. It’s not aiming to monetize their eyeballs or make them believe some particular thing, or sell them a product. Wikipedia has no hidden agenda: it just wants to be helpful.
That’s less true of other sites. Most are commercially motivated: their purpose is to make money. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a desire to make the world a better place – many do! – but it does mean that their positions and actions need to be understood in the context of conflicting interests.
My hope is that when Wikipedia shuts down on January 18, people will understand that we’re doing it for our readers. We support everyone’s right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they can’t pay for it. We believe in a free and open Internet where information can be shared without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA and PIPA, and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States, don’t advance the interests of the general public. You can read a very good list of reasons to oppose SOPA and PIPA here, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Why is this a global action, rather than US-only? And why now, if some American legislators appear to be in tactical retreat on SOPA?
The reality is that we don’t think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we’re seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the Internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone.
Make your voice heard!
On January 18, we hope you’ll agree with us, and will do what you can to make your own voice heard.
Sue Gardner,
Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Monday, January 16, 2012
萬聖節故事: 科學怪人之仙樂飄飄処処聞 / A Halloween Story: Frankenstein's Sound of Music (A scary story that groans on you!!)
This page is from Igor,
Frankly quite a groaner!
Soundly with music so haunting,
You should've seen it coming!
- Haricot -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Winter Story: Frankenstein's Music (as told by Igor)
Bob Hill and his wife Betty are winter-vacationing in Europe.... as it happens, near Transylvania. It's getting late and snowing hard. They are driving along a rather deserted highway and Bob can barely see where he is going. Suddenly, the car skids out of control! Bob attempts to steer but to no avail! The car swerves and smashes into a tree. Moments later, Bob shakes his head to clear the fog. Dazed, he looks over to the passenger side only to find his wife unconscious and her head bleeding! Despite the winter storm and unfamiliar surrounding, Bob knows he has to get her medical assistance.
Bob carefully picks his wife up and begins trudging down the road. After a short while, he sees a light coming from a large, old house. He approaches the door and knocks. A minute passes. A small, hunched man opens the door. Bob immediately blurts, "Hello, my name is Bob Hill. We are in a terrible accident and my wife Betty here is seriously hurt. Can I please use your phone?" "I'm sorry," replied the hunchback, "but we don't have a phone. My master is a doctor. C'mon in! I will go get him!"
Bob carries his wife in. An older man comes down the stairs. "I'm afraid my assistant may have misled you. I am not a medical doctor; I am a scientist but with some basic medical training. We are far from any hospital and it's impossible to drive in this weather. I will see what I can do for you here. Igor, bring them down to the laboratory." Igor picks up Betty and carries her downstairs, with Bob following closely. Igor places Betty on a table in the lab. Bob collapses from exhaustion and his own injuries, so Igor places Bob on an adjoining table.
After a brief examination, Igor's master looks worried. "Things are serious, Igor, prepare a transfusion." Igor and his master work feverishly but to no avail. Bob and Betty Hill are no more. The Hills' deaths upset Igor's master greatly. Wearily, he climbs the steps to his conservatory, which houses his pipe organ. For it is here that he has always found solace. He begins to play and a stirring, almost haunting, melody fills the house.
Meanwhile, Igor is still in the lab tidying up. His eyes catch movement and he notices the fingers on Betty's hand twitch, keeping time to Frankenstein's haunting music. Stunned, he watches as Bob's arm begins to rise, marking the beat! He is further amazed as Betty and Bob both sit up straight!
Unable to contain himself, he dashes up the stairs to the conservatory. He bursts in and shouts to his master:
"Master, Master!.....The Hills are alive with the sound of music!"
(I am soooooo sorry..... but you really should've seen that one coming!!)
Sources / Photo credit:
* Text: Joke from TriRudy
* Top two Photos: Wikipedia / Frankenstein
* Bottom photo: By Lotusandcedar at Camp Fortune (IMG00566)
Note: First posted on Jan 16, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
美國前國务卿基辛格专访 / Interview with Henry Kissinger
(Disclaimer: The posting of the following information on this blog does not imply in any shape or form my endorsement of the positions/opinions of the original authours and their affiliated organizations. I also cannot guaranty the accuracy or completeness of the posted info.)
【文匯網訊】2012年1月13日央視《環球視線》播出《專訪美國前國務卿基辛格》，以下是節目實錄：
主持人勞春燕： 說起基辛格和中國的淵源，可以用這麼一串數字來概括，他在40年前掀開了「冷戰」的帷幕，和尼克松總統一起重啟了中美外交，並且在此後的40多年中，來過中國50多次。今年時值尼克松總統訪華40周年，基辛格再一次來到了中國。我的同事水均益昨天專訪了這位已經88歲的老人，一起來看一看。
解說： 2012年的新春伊始，對於中美關係來說非常具有紀念意義。40年前，1972年2月21日，美國總統尼克松正式訪華。2月28日，中美兩國發表了《中美聯合公報》，這兩個位於東西半球的大國交往之門終於被打開，而一位88歲的老人正是見證了這40年來中美走過的風雨歷程，他就是美國前國務卿基辛格。
解說： 2012年的新春伊始，對於中美關係來說非常具有紀念意義。40年前，1972年2月21日，美國總統尼克松正式訪華。2月28日，中美兩國發表了《中美聯合公報》，這兩個位於東西半球的大國交往之門終於被打開，而一位88歲的老人正是見證了這40年來中美走過的風雨歷程，他就是美國前國務卿基辛格。
字幕提示： 2012年1月12日北京 專訪美國前國務卿基辛格
水均益本台記者： 今年是尼克松總統首次訪華四十周年，您也要參加相關的周年紀念活動，跟我們談談這個周年紀念有多重要？
基辛格美國前國務卿： 國際社會體系發生了革命性的變化，在1972年之前的二十多年裡，美中兩國幾乎把對方視為敵人，美中雙方曾在台灣海峽發生軍事對峙，全世界當時都認為美中兩國有可能成為敵人，所以從美中雙邊關係正常化開始，我們逐漸從關係正常化走向合作，這也使得許多國家開始重新思考自己之前的政策。在這四十年裡，美中雙方在國際事務中，基本上都保持一致的步調，這是一件非常了不起的事情。
水均益： 您也非常樂意見證這個四十周年紀念活動？基辛格博士，現在有許多人特別是專家學者都表示，美國是一個正在衰落的大國，而中國是一個正在崛起的大國，或者我們可以從歷史上找到這樣的例子，這兩個大國可能有一天會在利益上發生摩擦，也許最終會導致衝突發生？
基辛格： 我是這樣認為的。世界格局已經同過去完全不一樣了。在過去，這樣的例子最終會導致國際事務中零和遊戲的出現，即一方獲勝，另一方失敗。但在今天，我認為如果美中關係之間發生衝突，那麼希望雙方都會是輸家。假如美中之間的外交關係徹底中斷了，那麼世界也會被分割，每個國家都要選擇站在哪邊，所以我不認同過去的規則，我認為當今如果發生衝突，任何國家都不可能獲溢，所以這也就是為什麼國家領導人在遇到這類問題時，會想方設法去解決它。所以我認為，這個猜想是錯誤的。無論如何，我們必須行動起來，證明這種猜想是錯誤的。
水均益： 我的理解是只要一種情況，那就是我們要做出正確的選擇，正確的決定。
基辛格： 這非常重要，這需要兩個國家，都做出正確的決定，光靠一個國家是無法完成的。
基辛格美國前國務卿： 國際社會體系發生了革命性的變化，在1972年之前的二十多年裡，美中兩國幾乎把對方視為敵人，美中雙方曾在台灣海峽發生軍事對峙，全世界當時都認為美中兩國有可能成為敵人，所以從美中雙邊關係正常化開始，我們逐漸從關係正常化走向合作，這也使得許多國家開始重新思考自己之前的政策。在這四十年裡，美中雙方在國際事務中，基本上都保持一致的步調，這是一件非常了不起的事情。
水均益： 您也非常樂意見證這個四十周年紀念活動？基辛格博士，現在有許多人特別是專家學者都表示，美國是一個正在衰落的大國，而中國是一個正在崛起的大國，或者我們可以從歷史上找到這樣的例子，這兩個大國可能有一天會在利益上發生摩擦，也許最終會導致衝突發生？
基辛格： 我是這樣認為的。世界格局已經同過去完全不一樣了。在過去，這樣的例子最終會導致國際事務中零和遊戲的出現，即一方獲勝，另一方失敗。但在今天，我認為如果美中關係之間發生衝突，那麼希望雙方都會是輸家。假如美中之間的外交關係徹底中斷了，那麼世界也會被分割，每個國家都要選擇站在哪邊，所以我不認同過去的規則，我認為當今如果發生衝突，任何國家都不可能獲溢，所以這也就是為什麼國家領導人在遇到這類問題時，會想方設法去解決它。所以我認為，這個猜想是錯誤的。無論如何，我們必須行動起來，證明這種猜想是錯誤的。
水均益： 我的理解是只要一種情況，那就是我們要做出正確的選擇，正確的決定。
基辛格： 這非常重要，這需要兩個國家，都做出正確的決定，光靠一個國家是無法完成的。
解說： 2012年新年伊始，美國政府宣佈調整軍事戰略，亞太地區尤其是西太平洋，將成為美國新的軍事戰略要點。近年來，美國一直在進行著戰略東移，也隨著這份新的國防戰略日益明朗化，即安全戰略的優先任務也由反恐、防擴散轉向了應對崛起大國，基辛格卻並不贊同美國決策層所謂遏制中國的戰略思維。在2011年出版的《論中國》中，他警告說，今天美國決策層仍然認為中國崛起與美國在太平洋地區的位置無法兼容，因此最好先敵視、遏制，如果這種思維方式持續、蔓延，那僵局將不可避免，嚴重時，甚至可能導致下一場「冷戰」。
水均益： 那麼您如何解讀奧巴馬政府最近提出的新軍事戰略報告？
基辛格： 就像他所說的我們不會減少在亞洲的軍事存在，我認為這不意味著軍事力量的增加，而是一種重新部署，我認為奧巴馬的戰略會在美國國內引發大討論，但不會影響我們兩國之間的關係。
水均益： 很多中國人從不同的方向解讀了這份報告，因為我們會有很多次聽到奧巴馬總統以及希拉裡國務卿都說過，美國要重返亞洲，而最近的這份報告還把中國稱為潛在的對手。
基辛格： 你看你們就生活在亞洲，我從來就不知道我們曾經離開過亞洲，又要重返亞洲。
水均益： 那為什麼說要重返亞洲呢？
基辛格： 我們一直就在亞洲，所以重返亞洲，只是人們的一種說辭，但這沒有改變我的基本觀念，那就是美中關係應保持良好的發展態勢。
水均益： 所以說，您並不贊同這樣一種觀點，那就是中國會成為美國的挑戰者。
基辛格： 我認為不應該把中國視為軍事上的挑戰或者是經濟上的挑戰，我認為中國也不應將美國視為軍事上的挑戰，我們應當增加互信，因此我們沒有必要投入大量額外的經費去搞軍備競爭。
基辛格： 就像他所說的我們不會減少在亞洲的軍事存在，我認為這不意味著軍事力量的增加，而是一種重新部署，我認為奧巴馬的戰略會在美國國內引發大討論，但不會影響我們兩國之間的關係。
水均益： 很多中國人從不同的方向解讀了這份報告，因為我們會有很多次聽到奧巴馬總統以及希拉裡國務卿都說過，美國要重返亞洲，而最近的這份報告還把中國稱為潛在的對手。
基辛格： 你看你們就生活在亞洲，我從來就不知道我們曾經離開過亞洲，又要重返亞洲。
水均益： 那為什麼說要重返亞洲呢？
基辛格： 我們一直就在亞洲，所以重返亞洲，只是人們的一種說辭，但這沒有改變我的基本觀念，那就是美中關係應保持良好的發展態勢。
水均益： 所以說，您並不贊同這樣一種觀點，那就是中國會成為美國的挑戰者。
基辛格： 我認為不應該把中國視為軍事上的挑戰或者是經濟上的挑戰，我認為中國也不應將美國視為軍事上的挑戰，我們應當增加互信，因此我們沒有必要投入大量額外的經費去搞軍備競爭。
解說： 2011年下半年，美伊關係驟然緊張。11月8日，國際原子能機構出台《伊朗核報告》，自後西方社會對伊朗的喊打聲一直不絕於耳。12月24日，伊朗海軍在霍爾木茲海峽舉行了為期10天代號為「守衛-90」的大規模軍事演習，以回應美國和歐盟近日對伊出台的多項制裁措施。一時間，波斯灣上空似乎充滿了硝煙的味道。
薩亞里伊朗海軍司令： 我們掌控霍爾木茲海峽的安全，我們控制著霍爾木茲海峽。
解說： 然而，就在霍爾木茲海峽在伊朗軍演期間，美國「約翰·斯坦尼斯」號航母還曾穿越霍爾木茲海峽進行例行活動。對美國來說，這裡是中東戰略咽喉。對伊朗政府來說，這裡是安全前沿。如今全世界的目光都集中在這裡，所有媒體都在等待一個消息，戰火是否一觸即發？
水均益： 另一個當今熱門話題：伊朗問題，特別是伊朗人現在威脅要封鎖霍爾木茲海峽，美國表示這是紅線。如果伊朗封鎖霍爾木茲海峽，美國就會採取行動，美國和伊朗有可能發生戰爭嗎？
基辛格： 我認為伊朗不會封鎖霍爾木茲海峽，在這個問題上我支持美國政府，因為如果霍爾木茲海峽遭封鎖，全世界的油價都會飆升，這會給全世界造成重大經濟問題，甚至會造成經濟蕭條，任何國家都不應該這麼做。我認為，假如霍爾木茲海峽遭封鎖，美國會尋求其它國家的支持，採取行動重新開放霍爾木茲海峽，但我不想看到這件事情發生。
水均益： 基辛格博士，最後一個問題，您對於所謂的西亞北非局勢動盪的看法，特別是最近的焦點是敘利亞，敘利亞再一次同西方國家或者說美國發生了對抗，跟我們談談，您如何看待這些發生在阿拉伯世界的事情。
基辛格： 在西亞北非局勢動盪中，有很多國家發生了革命，它們經歷了政權交替，遭受了很多挫折，但有一個事實是，對於許多發生革命的國家來說，當革命結束的時候，他們必須要建立一個有能力解決問題的政府，那些重新組建的政府，也需要制定建設性的政策，敘利亞還沒有到這一步。
水均益： 非常感謝，感謝您接受我的採訪。
基辛格： 我認為伊朗不會封鎖霍爾木茲海峽，在這個問題上我支持美國政府，因為如果霍爾木茲海峽遭封鎖，全世界的油價都會飆升，這會給全世界造成重大經濟問題，甚至會造成經濟蕭條，任何國家都不應該這麼做。我認為，假如霍爾木茲海峽遭封鎖，美國會尋求其它國家的支持，採取行動重新開放霍爾木茲海峽，但我不想看到這件事情發生。
水均益： 基辛格博士，最後一個問題，您對於所謂的西亞北非局勢動盪的看法，特別是最近的焦點是敘利亞，敘利亞再一次同西方國家或者說美國發生了對抗，跟我們談談，您如何看待這些發生在阿拉伯世界的事情。
基辛格： 在西亞北非局勢動盪中，有很多國家發生了革命，它們經歷了政權交替，遭受了很多挫折，但有一個事實是，對於許多發生革命的國家來說，當革命結束的時候，他們必須要建立一個有能力解決問題的政府，那些重新組建的政府，也需要制定建設性的政策，敘利亞還沒有到這一步。
水均益： 非常感謝，感謝您接受我的採訪。
勞春燕： 以上就是今天的《環球視線》，感謝您的陪伴，再見。
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Avoiding a U.S.-China cold war
By Henry A. Kissinger
Friday, January 14, 2011 Washington Post
The upcoming summit between the American and Chinese presidents is to take place while progress is being made in resolving many of the issues before them, and a positive communique is probable. Yet both leaders also face an opinion among elites in their countries emphasizing conflict rather than cooperation.
Most Chinese I encounter outside of government, and some in government, seem convinced that the United States seeks to contain China and to constrict its rise. American strategic thinkers are calling attention to China's increasing global economic reach and the growing capability of its military forces.
Care must be taken lest both sides analyze themselves into self-fulfilling prophecies. The nature of globalization and the reach of modern technology oblige the United States and China to interact around the world. A Cold War between them would bring about an international choosing of sides, spreading disputes into internal politics of every region at a time when issues such as nuclear proliferation, the environment, energy and climate require a comprehensive global solution.
Conflict is not inherent in a nation's rise. The United States in the 20th century is an example of a state achieving eminence without conflict with the then-dominant countries. Nor was the often-cited German-British conflict inevitable. Thoughtless and provocative policies played a role in transforming European diplomacy into a zero-sum game.
Sino-U.S. relations need not take such a turn. On most contemporary issues, the two countries cooperate adequately; what the two countries lack is an overarching concept for their interaction. During the Cold War, a common adversary supplied the bond. Common concepts have not yet emerged from the multiplicity of new tasks facing a globalized world undergoing political, economic and technological upheaval.
That is not a simple matter. For it implies subordinating national aspirations to a vision of a global order.
Neither the United States nor China has experience in such a task. Each assumes its national values to be both unique and of a kind to which other peoples naturally aspire. Reconciling the two versions of exceptionalism is the deepest challenge of the Sino-American relationship.
America's exceptionalism finds it natural to condition its conduct toward other societies on their acceptance of American values. Most Chinese see their country's rise not as a challenge to America but as heralding a return to the normal state of affairs when China was preeminent. In the Chinese view, it is the past 200 years of relative weakness - not China's current resurgence - that represent an abnormality.
America historically has acted as if it could participate in or withdraw from international affairs at will. In the Chinese perception of itself as the Middle Kingdom, the idea of the sovereign equality of states was unknown. Until the end of the 19th century, China treated foreign countries as various categories of vassals. China never encountered a country of comparable magnitude until European armies imposed an end to its seclusion. A foreign ministry was not established until 1861, and then primarily for dealing with colonialist invaders.
America has found most problems it recognized as soluble. China, in its history of millennia, came to believe that few problems have ultimate solutions. America has a problem-solving approach; China is comfortable managing contradictions without assuming they are resolvable.
American diplomacy pursues specific outcomes with single-minded determination. Chinese negotiators are more likely to view the process as combining political, economic and strategic elements and to seek outcomes via an extended process. American negotiators become restless and impatient with deadlocks; Chinese negotiators consider them the inevitable mechanism of negotiation. American negotiators represent a society that has never suffered national catastrophe - except the Civil War, which is not viewed as an international experience. Chinese negotiators cannot forget the century of humiliation when foreign armies exacted tribute from a prostrate China. Chinese leaders are extremely sensitive to the slightest implication of condescension and are apt to translate American insistence as lack of respect.
North Korea provides a good example of differences in perspective. America is focused on the proliferation of nuclear weapons. China, which in the long run has more to fear from nuclear weapons there than we, in addition emphasizes propinquity. It is concerned about the turmoil that might follow if pressures on nonproliferation lead to the disintegration of the North Korean regime. America seeks a concrete solution to a specific problem. China views any such outcome as a midpoint in a series of interrelated challenges, with no finite end, about the future of Northeast Asia. For real progress, diplomacy with Korea needs a broader base.
Americans frequently appeal to China to prove its sense of "international responsibility" by contributing to the solution of a particular problem. The proposition that China must prove its bona fides is grating to a country that regards itself as adjusting to membership in an international system designed in its absence on the basis of programs it did not participate in developing.
While America pursues pragmatic policies, China tends to view these policies as part of a general design. Indeed, it tends to find a rationale for essentially domestically driven initiatives in terms of an overall strategy to hold China down.
The test of world order is the extent to which the contending can reassure each other. In the American-Chinese relationship, the overriding reality is that neither country will ever be able to dominate the other and that conflict between them would exhaust their societies. Can they find a conceptual framework to express this reality? A concept of a Pacific community could become an organizing principle of the 21st century to avoid the formation of blocs. For this, they need a consultative mechanism that permits the elaboration of common long-term objectives and coordinates the positions of the two countries at international conferences.
The aim should be to create a tradition of respect and cooperation so that the successors of leaders meeting now continue to see it in their interest to build an emerging world order as a joint enterprise.
The writer was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977.
THIS STORY
· Political reform: China's next modernization?
· Avoiding a U.S.-China cold war
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/13/AR2011011304832.html
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Robin Redbreast
Robin Redbreast
In the deep of a northern winter
To fan the flame of a dying campfire
A cold but beautiful sunset
Where can I find Robin Redbreast
In the deep of a northern winter
To fan the flame of a dying campfire
A cold but beautiful sunset
Where can I find Robin Redbreast
Photo Credit: Wikipedia / American Robin
"… The American Robin has a place in Native American mythology. The story of how the robin got its red breast by fanning the dying flames of a campfire to save a Native American man and a boy …. The Robin is considered a symbol of spring … a Quebec superstition that whoever sees the first robin of spring will have good luck…"
Monday, January 09, 2012
Downhill Skiing at Camp Fortune (IMG00544)
Much to the delight of the ski hill operators, the sky opened up again last Thursday night and poured more fluffy snow onto the barren slopes. We are now well into the first half of January and everyone is desperately trying to make up for lost time. As depicted in the photo, the ski patrols are out in full force, so are the skiers.
I too have got my seasonal ski pass and will go out as often as I can.
But, we will still need more snow !!!
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Ottawa's Winter Blue ... encore (IMG00539)
Maybe I won't go out running tonight >_<
Ottawa's Winter Blue (IMG00538)
A warm cup of Chai Latte at Bridgehead helped save the day !!!
Sunday, January 01, 2012
歡送2011年,迎接 2012年 / Au Revoir 2011 et Bonne Année 2012 !!!
Happy New Year (sung by ABBA)
No more champagne
And the fireworks are through
Here we are, me and you
Feeling lost and feeling blue
It's the end of the party
And the morning seems so grey
So unlike yesterday
Now's the time for us to say...
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I
Sometimes I see
How the brave new world arrives
And I see how it thrives
In the ashes of our lives
Oh yes, man is a fool
And he thinks he'll be okay
Dragging on, feet of clay
Never knowing he's astray
Keeps on going anyway...
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I
Seems to me now
That the dreams we had before
Are all dead, nothing more
Than confetti on the floor
It's the end of a decade
In another ten years time
Who can say what we'll find
What lies waiting down the line
In the end of eighty-nine...
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I
祝各位新年快樂!!! / Happy New Year everyone !!! / Bonne Année Tout le Monde !!!
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