My Academic Adventure
Sharing my intellectual discoveries mostly about history, Middle East, diversity and women voices and ethnic minorities. An academic journey to new facts and realities in a world on the run.
Sunday, March 24, 2024
A Dynamic History of the Cold War
Thursday, March 14, 2024
Invisible Martyrs by Farhana Qazi
Farhana Qazi is the first ever Muslim woman working in US counter terrorism institutions, but first and foremost, her pioneering work was to focus on personal stories in addition to psychological profiles of women who chose to get involved in terrorism radical movements and ultimately, in suicide terrorist attacks.
Invisible Martyrs. Inside the Secret World of Female Islamic Radicals is an interesting read - available as audiobook read by the author herself as well - as it puts the women involved in extremism act on the map of radical/extremist movements.
She outlines several times, based on her own experiences in commenting various religious texts that Muslim women involved in such acts represent a small amount of the religious women as ´most Muslim women practice Islam peacefully´. However, since the 1970s onwards there is an increasing number of women fighting ´their oppressors´, alongside with men, and her mother, involved in various militant actions in the Kashmir, may be an example in this respect.
Abu Musab al-Zarkawi was the first to encourage women to sacrifice for extremist political actions, but women were at certain extents already present in the field since the late 1980s.
Qazi arguments and informations, also supported by other researchers in the field, such as Mia Bloom, who is also quoted in the book, is that women are alongside with men able to get involved in various militant episodes. They may be manipulated by men often, as accomplice or lover of men involved in terrorism. They can accompany them to death or do it for the sake of them and the promise of a heaven.
The important conclusion is that there are no general patterns and psychological profiles of women, but circumstances may be significantly important. Individual stories shared in the book of girls marginalized or being outside parental control - or maybe under a too stricter such control - can only diversify the angles and perspectives to consider in such situations.
The book is rich in examples and methods, making easier for researchers in the field to navigate a relatively new but increasingly important area of study. It offers guidance and directions, but given the novely of the area of study and the scarcity of current knowledge in this respect, I may expect different takes and conclusions for the time being. The merit of the book is nevertheless significant.
Rating: 4.5 stars
The Kinder of Hoy
Saturday, December 30, 2023
Reconciling Ugliness
In a first post-colonial critical approach on the Western standards of beauty within the German intellectual realm, from a multi-disciplinary perspective, Hässlichkeit (Ugliness, in my free translation) by Afghani-German artist and essayist Moshtari Hilal is an important contribution to the discourse on power games within the beauty industry.
What do we have in mind when we, as women, we are looking ourselves into the mirror? What do we see there? And, more specifically, who do we see there? In most cases, there are some given society standards and expectations that we take into consideration. We see ourselves and the other through those mindsets and we want to emulate in order to not disappoint, to feel desired and desirable, also from a social point of view. It is also a personal account of the reconciliation with the own body, reclaiming the own identity and unicity.
Moshtari´s journey through the perceptions and representations of the body in the Western culture - documented with philosophical, artistic and anthropological sources - reveals the mechanisms of acception and rejection, mediated by the body representation. The author is reflecting on her - and her family - direct experiences in perceiving the feminine body in the Western/White/European realm.
There are many topics that may have deserved an extended and relatively more in-depth analysis, including in the larger context of the beauty industry, such as the case of beauty surgeries explicitly about the illusion of extended youth - but this book is definitely a great start if you want to evaluate the beauty standards from an ethnic/minority-focused perspective.
Delightfully, the book also contains illustrations - graphic and photography - by the author, an example of how this type of intellectual writing can be done in an artistically creative way.
Rating: 4 stars
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
´Africa Is Not a Country´
Sunday, November 5, 2023
The Feminist Revolution of Iran
A revolution doesn´t happen over night but once it happens, it changes the face of the world for ever. The predominantly women-lead movement in Iran manifested to the eyes of the Western world one year ago, during the protests ignited by the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman of Kurdish origin, beated to death by the so-called ´Morality Police´. The regime of the mullahs, who is oppressing Iran for over four decades and keps their population hostage, reacted in full strength, with the desperate scream of a wounded animal that is supposed to die anyway: young people were murdered, tortured and imprisoned. Western ´independent´ journalists trained to support the ´liberals´ aiming for a diluted still theocratic republic, were keen to (des)´inform´ that the ´Morality police´ was abolished and women are freely abandoning the hijab without any consequences, although informed people shared the pressure put on banks, taxi drivers or store owners to refuse serving uncovered women.
Despite the spin of media intoxication, not all journalists of Iranian origin fall for the lures of the mullah servants. Germany, for instance, do have a steady Iranian immigration, dating from before of the Revolution, mostly people committed to refuse theocratic tendencies, no matter how coherent their desire for ´reformation´. The last year protests brought to the forefront journalists, especially women, with good information from inside the country and a strong voice for offering an informed view on the events in Iran. Tehran-born Gilda Sahebi is one of them and I had the chance to listen to her during an event organised this year on the occasion of the Berlin Literature Festival dedicated to the ongoing mentality changes in Iran.
Her book, Unser Schwert ist Liebe - Our Sword is Love, in my own translation - (the title of a song by currently imprisoned rapper Toomaj Salehi) - is an account of the most important events of the last years, with a special focus on the Woman Life Freedom movement. The information cover not only the chain of events and the most important milestones, but also features - anonymously, for obvious security reasons - testimonies of people direclty involved in various segments of the movement, including testimonies of doctors, ethnic and sexual minorities. The book is more than a simple journalistic report, it may help tremendously historians and political scientists to understand the outcome of the movement and eventually to trace its evolution in the months and years to come.
I hope someone will have the inspiration to translate this book into English or French or any other foreign languages. It adds important information to the nascent literature regarding the democratic movement in Iran, that hopefully soon I will present more on my blog.