I won’t spoil it for you, but just watch as she not only demonstrates that the guy’s just plain wrong about the content of the show but also the inconsistency within the guy’s religion. Of all the problems in Pakistan that twit decides to complain about he picks an actress appearing on a TV show as a huge sin.

Islam has bigger issues than an Actress going on TV

But hey, these types pop up all over the world (including Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali from Australia), divinely inspired by the Qu’ran’s unenlightened views on women unfortunately.

It really speaks volumes when I posted this up on facebook a little while back that someone made the comment that “You do realise she’d be killed within a month right….”. I certainly hope not and hope that she inspires the wider community to examine and question the filthy moral lessons people like this cleric put out there.

The struggles post disaster although heightened dramatically are but a big bang version of the daily problems faced ongoing in developed nations. Extreme disease, poverty, health issues, hunger, thirst and helplessness are a constant when you’re in that half of the world that live on less than $2 a day.

Water

The most urgent need after any widespread disaster would have to be availability of clean water. The massive infrastructure damage that follows earthquakes is no exception: pipes and dams rupture, sewage leaks, electricity is knocked out to pumping stations, transport routes disrupted etc. For tsunamis the contamination of drinking water is a major problem. War and plague situations the problem becomes competition for limited fresh water or crowding near water which results in disease outbreak. Michael Pritchard’s got a device to turn undrinkeable water drinkable:

As a side note to get an idea of the scale he’s talking with the filtration of virii see my earlier post: Zoom in! Enhance.. Enhance! Oh, look! There’s a carbon atom.

So the idea is instead of shipping the rather heavy, bulky and “single shot” bottles of water: ship these filtration packs. They can then turn thousands of litres into drinkable water and most importantly they can do it away from central distribution centres (which means less risk of people in close contact spreading disease and less need to make risky treks or relocation to camps). If it can make the Thames water + rabbit shit + pond sludge drinkable then it can be used by people to get drinking water from the flood waters or stagnant dams.

Health

Life threatening injuries require urgent medical assistance, which often involves delivering things like vaccinations, antibiotics and other medications. These are sometimes delivered by doctors, other times by semi-skilled healthcare volunteers and sometimes by completely untrained people.

Marc Koska looked at what happens in poorer nations with reuse of syringes in poorer nations and proposed a solution that doesn’t cost any more than the standard syringe out there in circulation today:

So to prevent a natural disaster (or simply being a poor nation) turning into a subsequent AIDS/HIV, Hepatitis or other blood borne outbreak after the dust has settled: any and all syringes sent into a disaster zone need to have this “fire once and break” mechanism.

Aside from the immediate/urgent injuries of the masses affected by the disaster there’s also the medium to longer term concerns. Many are instantly thrown below the poverty level as their possessions may have been lost, destroyed or left behind. Sight is perhaps one of the most important sensory tools we have as humans and Josh Silver has an amazing demonstration of cheap, easily adjustable liquid filled eye glasses which could restore clear vision to people. This is in addition to the worth of such a device in any developing nation as a means for increasing productivity and removing poor vision as a barrier to economic independence for many aging people.

Bill Clinton (an idol of mine for public speaking) talks about the core problem with many developing/poor nations: the need for healthcare systems.

He makes the interesting point that one of the biggest problems in nations without systems is that in an environment of chaos you have no guarantee that effort will result in certain outcomes. Everything becomes a struggle, absolutely everything. Take a developed nation: you know that making the effort to go to a doctor with a child for vaccination will almost always result in you walking away with a vaccinated child (or an appointment the next day if for some reason they couldn’t see you that day).

Bill’s talk is about creating a repeatable model for installing self maintaining healthcare systems in countries that will address the issue of incapacity in those nations which is starting to become the biggest hurdle to tackling various health problems.

Money
A huge need for any disaster recovery is via emergency relief funds flowing in quickly and to the right people. This is what I’d probably call top down aid. But taking a step either side of the disaster event (lead up or later stage recovery) and you have a need for funding at the bottom level in the developing world.

The individual need for economic growth beyond organic funding (e.g. you need a piece of equipment that you simply do not have the cash for but which will allow you to generate income). What will work is not charity necessarily as the old “give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime” states.

Jacqueline Novogratz proposes an alternative to straight out charity she calls “patient capital”:

So rebuilding and pre-building (preparing a nation to be strong and ready to cope with disasters) this is of great importance. Low income entrepreneurs need access to finance too. There are now a number of micro-finance or micro lending options out there.

Now I’ll stretch the mandate of this blog entry (I am the boss of it after all) a bit and attempt to link into post economic credit crisis (see here for my background on the credit crisis in pretty pictures and animations) consumer spending habits and how it could be a good thing for having money available for such disasters. Watch John Gerzema talk about value shifts in consumerism:

So the idea he was discussing was that we’d move away from mindless consumption (I hope it sticks!). People becoming more humble in their purchasing or indeed less likely to purchase unnecessary goods in the first place.

Tourism is trending towards trips that are a bit more low key (which would perhaps make less “touristy” places more likely destinations, perhaps helping to get tourism going in developing nations).

Consumers could also start to put pressure on companies to make ethical choices and be less exploitative/more inclusive of the 3rd world (e.g. stuff like the Fair Trade Association).

I could go on for pages and pages with extrapolations from this basic concept with respect to the 3rd world, but perhaps I’ll leave that for another time.

Education
Education can’t be quickly dropped from helicopter and stuck in a kids arm via some healthcare worker. BUT I strongly believe that the key to solving just about any of our problems (and dramatically lesson the impact of natural disasters) is via education.

Health problems, inescapable poverty, religion based persecution/superstition etc. can all be pushed out of the spotlight by giving people access to education. Access to good, secular education (yes, I do happen to think that teaching kids that “god did it” instead of real science is a rather horrible thing to do) can and does help people’s lives get better. Unfortunately the very worst of bible thumping misinformation (Dying from AIDS is preferable to using a condom type stuff) is getting pushed in massive amounts into the poor nations where lack of funding leaves a massive gap.

But I digress!

With education comes the ability to read and write. This means health pamphlets, coordination with government/aid workers etc. It means independent research/learning can take place (see the end for a great example!).

So in the pre-disaster situation: with education comes the opportunity to better your position in life (economically, intellectually etc). Women are often (always?) the last in a given society to access this basic mechanism for improvement. With that in mind, Michelle Obama’s plea for education (filmed last year) directed at girls is definitely worth a listen:

Education is one of those ways of “disaster proofing” (well.. strives toward disaster proofing at least). It replaces ignorance with knowledge, superstition with reason and prevents a whole sway of flow on consequences throughout society if people are uneducated, poor and with no possibility of escaping such a situation.

Like any good teacher, the ones servicing the eager young minds in developing nations will need materials. So to address that, from a technology standpoint: Richard Baraniuk talks about a system for sharing/open sourcing learning:

I don’t need to go into how beneficial free, shareable knowledge can be in boosting the education levels in any given country. A number of universities have opened up their course materials to anyone with an internet connection. Of course this does tend to be a bit inaccessible where internet is not available or computers are scarce so I guess he talks about community authored, publish on demand inexpensive books which could be extended to poorer nations with little access to the internet. This links in with the programs to bring laptops and internet to the developing nations, so access to content in the first place is definitely an important part of multi-pronged approach to educating the poor.

Mapping

Back to an immediate need in any disaster operation: The need for maps in terms of directing basic humanitarian functions through to use of GPS devices for efficient transport is critical.

There are programmes out there like Tracks 4 Africa who take the approach of handing out GPS mapping units to a community of volunteers and create an average of some fairly volatile paths.

Another community/volunteer approach is described in the “Making maps to fight disaster, build economies” by Lalitesh Katragadda at TEDIndia last year:

Communication

“Data is king” an old buddy of mine Rob once said and making sense of the massive amount of data that is produced during these disasters is far beyond anyone’s ability to sift through it all. So Erik Hersman’s TED Talk on reporting crisis via texting proposes a solution:

It’s a bit of a longer term goal, but a universal means of communication is important in any disaster situation. While I won’t claim that English is the panacea of communication the point is made by Jay Walker on the world’s English mania. It certainly seems like English is in many places in the world the possible “go between” language to unite many different nationalities.

In terms of lifting up the developed world the vast quantity and quality of materials available in English is undeniable, so ability to understand that is great.

Information Visualisation

Hans Rosling shows the best stats about the developing world you’ve ever seen (maybe you have seen it before in my previous post), particularly important to make the right policy decisions and to separate out the myth from that supportable by the data:

Having the right data analysis and visualisation tools is important for managing both the recovery from a disaster (the obvious problem being the collection of data to begin with. The wild variations over initial days of crisis of “estimated deaths” is but one example) and the prevention of the next event via generally improving the country’s situation to begin with.

Optimism for the future

I’ll end this rather lengthy post with some talks (or “grim inspiration” for the first one) on Optimism.

The first (a bit of a long one) by Robert “I’m not Mr optimism” Write is assuring us that history has an overall direction despite the apparent downs. From single cell organisms to today there is hope found in our evolution(s):

And I think a great example of how someone with nothing but a bit of ingenuity and some scraps of materials can do something quite impressive:

and his return to TED two years later a much more confident speaker (even throwing in some jokes..).

Which reinforces my earlier section on education and access to knowledge. William had access to a fairly hard won education. In his readings he came across one book that talked about the principles of wind electricity generation. This gave him the inspiration to dig up some pipes, an old bicycle dynamo and some other bits to make a windmill to power lights, radios and later irrigation pumps and the neighbours’ mobile phones.

If there’s a thing that people need particularly in a disaster situation or at the bottom of the economic rung: it’s optimism.

As William said in his speech: “Trust yourself and believe. Whatever happens don’t give up.”

Donations

All the best wishes for those doing good in Haiti and helping rebuild a destroyed country.

In terms of providing no bullshit assistance (without trying to convert people/spend it on bibles) I’d recommend Oxfam and the Red Cross, two great organisations that have helped millions over the years:

• Oxfam Australia’s Haiti donation page (or the US one for the yanks and UK one for the poms)
• Australian Red cross Haiti Quake appeal (or the US one, UK one)

In terms of some of the longer term goals I talked about, I think the tireless work of people like Fred Hollows is invaluable (restoring sight to people in the poorer nations). See The Fred hollows foundation to donate there. Again, another “let’s get maximum bang for buck” type organisation.

FOOTNOTE: As a (kinda) disclaimer I donate to the above charities as per any “ordinary bloke” off the street might, but have no financial/business or any other ties whatsoever. This blog is not funded by anyone other than myself.

Rekha : An inspiring little girl from India (image ABCNews.go.com)

In the past she had been working with her family to keep food on the table before a UNICEF sponsored program gave her an opportunity to get an education:

Like her father, she helped to support her family by rolling a type of cigarette called beedi. Then two years ago, a government non-profit program plucked her from a life of child labour to enrol her in special school.

Along with learning the standard classes, Rekha and dozens of other former child labourers were also taught leadership skills. The school, part of a UNICEF program, was free of charge so that families would not remove children from the program due to cost.

Nothing wrong with kids working a bit to help the family, learn some skills, earn some money, work ethics etc but getting stuck into harsh factory conditions (assuming that’s the case here) isn’t really teaching the kids anything other than misery and leaving them with no choices.

When I was little I got stuffed into spiderweb filled crawl spaces on weekends to lay electrical cable and hammer in cable clips (and the odd fingernail) onto electrical cables or digging trenches to earn my pocket money. Difference is that that was one day (perhaps rarely two days) a week rather than 12+ hours a day/7 days a week and I went to school monday to friday. That and as a spoilt westerner: my childhood version of “tough work” is nothing compared to what the kids in India or africa put up with.. As I’m sure my Father occasionally pointed out.

In Rekha’s case the work she was doing has been blasted for both the working conditions and the toxic nature of the substance they’re handling. A CNN article describes the problem:

Handling burley tobacco leaves without gloves, in unwashed clothes and rarely bathing, these children can absorb the same amount of nicotine in one day of harvesting that they would from smoking 50 cigarettes.

So a necessary part of any childhood, education is the key to avoid falling into an endless cycle of poverty or unhealthy work (including forcing the next generation and the next into child labour as well). This is because with education comes a much wider range of possible futures, as was the case with little  Rekha:

It was from these leadership classes that Rekha gained the strength to defy her family, her village and change her future. And with this decision, she inspired a chain reaction among her friends and throughout her village.

Good on her, I hope she inspires many others to refuse to be “promised”, bought, traded or sold. Back in India’s history books an old skinny guy named Ghandi had a pretty massive impact through quiet refusal to do things, so it’s not like her actions are without precedence.

I think the days of people treated as bargaining chips or livestock should fade into dim memories, documented and discarded from acceptable practice. Perhaps Rekha’s given the world a bit of a much needed nudge in that direction.

First up the denouncements and excuses:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Islamic leaders have condemned a Melbourne Muslim cleric who told followers it was permissible to hit their wives and force them to have sex.

But Coburg mosque cleric Samir Abu Hamza has told a confidant his message has been taken out of context and that he was referring to hitting wives in a metaphorical sense.

So let’s tick off the standard excuses, as per numerous earlier times. Like former top clerichead of Australia Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali comparing women to uncovered meat.

I’m starting to see a consistent pattern here, how about I save the newspapers some time:

Prime minister [Insert current PM here] and Islamic leaders have [condemned/strongly condemned] [remarks/footage/comments made by] [insert offending Muslim cleric name here] who told followers it was [insert misogynistic “right” or absolution of guilt of men here].

Cleric [insert Muslim cleric name here] claims his comments were taken out of context and [were not meant to refer to all women/were a metaphor].

[… body of article here ..]

[Insert other Muslim person name here] said [insert offending Muslim cleric name here] remarks were [inaccurate/not representative of Muslims/not representative of Islam] and upsetting to the Muslim community.

That should just about cover all the stories to do with idiots given mosque audience to spout their primitive philosophy on life. We can also re-use this template for other religious fools like Fred Nile etc.

The latest divinely inspired dickhead cleric clerichead was evidently too busy with his nose in the Qur’an to notice the government campaigns in the past and present in Australia (see my old blog post) meant to educate anyone with screwed up enough morals to not inherently know that women are not punching bags, that violence or forcing a wife to have sex is unacceptable. That’s regardless what the Qur’an says or you think it says. The law does not respect religious beliefs when they contradict the real laws of the country.

He says:

“In this country if the husband wants to sleep with his wife and she does not want to and she hasn’t got a sickness or whatever, there is nothing wrong with her she just does not feel like it, and he ends up sleeping with her by force … it is known to be as rape.

“Amazing, how can a person rape his wife?”

What really amazes me is that the crowd doesn’t say something. If ever this was an opportunity for the great Aussie heckler or piss-take put down to be inserted it’s when some twit is vomiting up this garbage.

By the way, this guy was giving a lecture titled “The Keys to a Successful Marriage”. A spokesperson for the latest round:

“In regards to hitting your wife, his position is that it has always been metaphorical – it’s not a whack, it’s not a slap, it’s a wake-up call.”

Yes, the millions of battered wives worldwide can take comfort in knowing that their latest black eye, broken jaw or murder by spouse is all just a metaphor for a “wake-up call”.

“First of all advise them [then] you beat them … but this is the last resort,” he says.

“After you have advised them for a long, long time then you smack them, you beat them and, please, brothers, calm down — the beating the Mohammed showed is like the toothbrush that you use to brush your teeth.

“You are not allowed to bruise them, you are not allowed to make them bleed.”

So, the question has to be asked: is the brave Samir Abu Hamza happy if a bunch of previous domestic violence victims inflict a bit of smacking, beating that doesn’t leave bruises for educational purposes. You know: perhaps some blows to the back of the head, or chin (since he’s got a big ol’ cleric beard that will hide any bruises, just like virtuous women should have a big old veil to cover theirs). There’s someone in need of a wakeup call and it isn’t the pesky independent minded woman folk.

A nameless source chimes in with a denial:

“We do not hit our women, you can ask any Muslim woman and she will tell you that, it’s not part of Islam,” the male staff member, who did not want to be named, said.

and if she says they do, just give her a metaphorical punch in the face until she says it right eh? I mean what fucking planet are these guys on: by that reckoning we should find that there’s no domestic violence at all in Muslim communities? Well that’s just bullshit, it’s an across the board issue that Islam has to acknowledge a part in and no one is saying ALL Muslim men beat their wives (although if they regard the Qur’an as the only law: then they’re well within their rights.. As would they be able to have slaves too). I’d hope that a large majority (large large!) choose (as most sane people do) to just ignore the Qur’an and people like Hamza and obey the law and good morals.

Source in the Qur’an

So where do all these cericheads get their inspiration from? It’s always been a passage in the Qur’an that I go back to time and time again to show just how incorrect, irrelevant, backward and ignorant Islamic teaching is. Succinctly and elegantly destroys the notion that the Qur’an is a perfect book. I speak of the Qur’an 4:34 and it reads like so (in PowerPoint bullets for brevity):

• Men are superior to and in charge of women because god made them that way and they’re the breadwinners in the family
• Good women should know their place and don’t sleep around or flash their girl bits around when the man is out of town
• For disobedient women (or ones you fear are disobedient) you can “admonish” them, kick them out of the bed and then beat (or scourge) them

One translator tried to act as editor for the obviously insane Mohammed and put in “(lightly)” in front of “beat”. The clerichead in this latest fit of stupidity claims insanity via metaphor. But it seems the message hasn’t really been very clear for a perfect book if we’re supposed to not do what it says:

I really feel sorry for the host of this TV program having to let this twit spout his nonsense. As she says “What do you mean by light beatings? I’d really like to know”:

An improvement to the perfect word of god

The web is full of people trying to make sense of this nonsense passage in the Qur’an or exposing similar types of ignorant Islamic speakers. Ultimately the conclusion is that the Qur’an isn’t anything divine, or perfect or useful in today’s world. I, a mere mortal, could improve the “perfect” word of god in a very easy fashion: throw away 4:34 and read it thus:

Men and women are created equal and should have equal opportunities and responsibilities. Neither has the right to force the other to do something against their will. Neither should ever be violent towards the other.

Seems like my version would be a lot less open to interpretation. But who am I to question the perfect word of god eh?

Just like Qur’anic justification of slavery this line and others expose the source for the Qur’an as purely of men on this Earth and typical of a time when the minds of those writing it couldn’t comprehend a future where things were different. Sure: at the time perhaps having a multistep process to disciplining your wife was a step better than just taking her out and killing her, but we’ve moved on quite a bit since those days (at least in the developed world). The problems of domestic violence and rape are by no means restricted to religious reasons, but it sure doesn’t help when people take up these teachings as divine justification for barbaric actions.