Posts Tagged human rights
The Third Sex
The society I grew up in, it has a rather aversive attitude towards the eunuchs (and transgenders).
To an extent that they are considered lesser of humans who does not get the social status of a regular man or woman; to an extent when the eunuchs live separately from their families- in ‘eunuch colonies’, don’t get proper education as they are very often abandoned by their families and what they mostly do for a living is prostitution.
The word ‘hijra’ (the Hindi/ Bengali/ Urdu word for eunuch) is derogatory in South Asian languages- something you do not use in ‘sophisticated’ company, more a slang than anything else. Sadly it is not much different in the English-speaking world either. I don’t know about the social statuses of that this less than fortunate group in the context of the more civilized Western society, but if ‘the word’ is used as a derogatory term- there is little chance of anything being different to a vast degree- after all.
While our biologist friends can give us a perfectly reasonable scientific reason of what causes a person to be a man, woman or a member of ‘the third sex’- I am more concerned with the way society treats this group. I find it funny in having to spell it out- but there is more to an individual than what ‘gender’ you can categorize him (or her or whatever) as- it’s time we became aware of it.
Just as sad it is that anyone will find it funny when a group of Indians with a disgusting sense of humour passing through a photograph of Serena and Venus Williams wearing a sari- saying the following-
‘You will die laughing at how ‘hijra’ Venus and Serena looks’.
Here is the picture:
No, I’m not laughing.
I see two American ladies wearing YOUR traditional clothing, I see two ladies belonging to a different racial group than you wearing YOUR traditional clothing- I see these two ladies are trying to embrace your culture. I see nothing funny in that, I think it is nice.
It’s time you stopped laughing too.
Lines, Borders and Human Rights
Posted by Pepper in Irrationality, Religion, WTF on November 7, 2009
Natural Growth.
Well, what is natural growth? If you ask me however- I’d say it’s the way a child grows, or plants do… or kittens…It’s the way your life grows…. you grow- from child to teenager, teenager to adult, young to old. It’s the way your hair grows, thins and greys.
It’s also the way cities grow… the way they get more crowded, the way there are more roads, more cars, more sound… less trees. It’s the way they grow upwards, houses keep getting smaller and playgrounds less in number. It’s the way we are a little closer to the skies to make room for all of us.
Yes, that is natural growth; not what happens in West Bank, Gaza. Because only in West Bank, there exists a ‘unique’ phenomenon of uprooting the local Palestinians off the area because the ‘ever-growing Israeli population would need more room’ as a consequence of their ‘natural growth’.
Can you imagine India making room into Pakistan, Bangladesh making room into India, Iran into Afghanistan, or France into Germany, Spain into France, Italy into Austria… it does not work this way. This is not how it’s done, this is simply not fair.
You don’t grow naturally into another’s place, and much less in a place that’s not yours in any sense but religious. You believe that’s your place because some holy book says so…. you don’t move natural inhabitants off a land because the land you’ve taken from them needs to expand…. if anything, this is a blatant violation of human rights; don’t let any ‘holy’ book tell you anything different.
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