Because I Am A Girl

 

A beautiful nature photo can inspire me with sudden awe. A cute puppy picture can tickle me with rapid love. A nice shirt can make me feel handsome and confident. An exotic great meal can afford me luxury of novelty. A loved one can embrace me with assurance and security. A gathering string of friends can provide me bursting laughter and a wanting sense of companionship.

 

Do not be deceived by me for I was misled by conscious happiness and fleeting comfort. As much as I want to share with my circles and readers the beauty of a photo, a phenomenon or a sentiment, I have progressed to understand the urgent need to propagate the opposite, the ugliness and the darkness before our eyes and under our nose.

 

The video above was first uploaded on 16^th February, 2009. Today, 18^th March, 2013, there are only 120,179 viewers.

The Great Womenfolk

As I remained literally wordless since my last post, the world is unceasingly volcanic spewing many dreary news, aka problems. So many problems, and each problem its rippling with devastating effects capable to inflict a billion lives, more or all. Which problem is worst? Which one to address first? I dread the rapid spread of breeding soil for everything evil, before our eyes or under our noses, not only the spread is rapid but the soil breeds more and potent toxins. While the evils are barely eradicated, I shuddered at the vastness the evil breeding soil occupied; whilst the evils before our eyes still manifesting, I cringed at the unknown ghosting right under our noses.

I have an affinity with womenfolk. Is it not all natural? The womenfolk gave birth to us; they have a core duality - love and compassion - which permits them more loving and compassionate. They shall always be gentle in exterior but strong in interior. I always have great respect for them. Today, nearly 10 hours ago, the very first news I chanced upon, while googling, was a brutal attack on a Swiss woman touring in India. Does anyone comprehend the constant gender target? It is of immense mental torment that until today our societies perpetuates social exclusion, maltreatment, sexual discrimination, commodification; and the perils ensuing have subjected millions of girls or women to violence every year. I expressed profound sadness the unfair perpetuity; I despised. A cruel continuity which may have reached as far back as history’s first founded trace of human’s existence.

Perhaps this is the first problem man should address: An evil before our eyes!

Albino Death Sentence

Tanzania, a country beset by lack of education n fueled by blind superstition of albinism, has been unable to bring more potent measures or means to inform many of its people albinism is a congenital condition. Superstitiously held as accursed by illiterates or potent ingredients for magic charms by witchdoctors, many with albinism live in fear of losing an arm, held by witchdoctors to be powerful ingredients, or their life, and to impose upon their living social exclusion and general discrimination. 

72 with albinism have been murdered and only 5 killers have been convicted since 2000.  Horrifically, the vicious attacks or killings are blind to age or gender. Salum Khalfani Bar'wani became the first with albinism to be elected as MP in 2010. In a statement by UN human rights chief Ms Navi Pillar said 4 attacks were documented with one fatality of a 6 year old boy, two brutality of losing left arm with one being 39 years old woman and a 10 year old boy, between end of Jan 2013 and mid of Feb; five suspects were arrested. 

Tanzania, being one of the poorest countries and least schooled in the world, people with albinism may not be protected even by family members. I hope the footage above would bring certain insights and, hopefully, awareness and pressing assistance for people with albinism. The fatal effects have spilled over to Burundi and Kenya too. It is utmost inhumane these people are being hunted and traded like elephant tusks. The hunters and the witchdoctors must be brought to justice, and the governments must step up their feet. It is clear complexity to try to sketch the people with albinism mean mental life and what reality really means to them....

The video by Al Jazeera and many more can be found in YouTube. Please share. Thank you, Nathan.

Seeking Insights

Everyone knows reading is great. One can always learn a thing or two from reading the simplest article, and if one takes a bit effort, one can always transform it into his own flight. Books or eBooks are great source of acquiring understanding and penetration in what are unfolded in these books; one can learn different cultures of different countries, experiences of hardship and successes, gaining overwhelming amount of valuable knowledge never thought before which can help to shape our core beliefs and values. I, personally, enjoy non-fictions on current affairs, environments, civilization, histories which could help us to understand a lot more about each other. It is too important not to know about such humanitarian matters. The reason our world has became so corroded its societies and environments is beyond pressing  for us to ignore and is very much more the reason we must convey such information across all borders. This book, 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond, came into my attention when I stumbled first upon his later book, 'Collapse' as below. The book 'Collapse' was found idled in my friend's house for months on a table. I started reading reading it every time I went over to my friend's house.

But I jumped straight into chapter 2 because its context caught my attention; this chapter brought to me my first and profound intelligence of  Easter Island in Pacific Ocean and the world it is today. I could not stop from then on. I kept wanting more from the book which told how 'societies choose to fall or succeed'. We may not choose to believe or may cast a doubt on what is written in this book and others, but there are immense intriguing accounts that proved very insightful and thought-provoking. I thought it was the most exciting book I ever read which prompted me to search for similar new books. This is how I ended up with the above book, 'Guns, Germs and Steel'. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, a synthesis of so many fields that takes its readers a journey into 'a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years.' This book took the Winner Of The 1998 Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize. This book told me why and how I can read and write today is truly treasurable, and attributed to thousands and thousands of hard-work, try and error, changes and evolutionary terms by our first ancestors. The many difficult parts  of a complex civilization were laid by our early ancestors who were nomadic or lived in caves. I am not sure where to begin but I can only earnestly encourage readers to try to read this book, try to understand it, because it will broaden your perspectives and appreciation for many petty things in life.

I cherished these values passed down to us. They created writing, speech and hence a language to go with. The many convenient grains and crops we eat today are their work of best and careful selection. How we have became we are today is sadly not learned by so many, not cherished. With the age of instant info, perhaps this book and many others good books would be readily find their ways to the readers.