Today, at this Moment in my Life: Culture, Religion, the Environment, and Me

This week, I have chosen to post something that is quite personal, but that I feel relates to culture, religion, and the environment right now at this exact moment in time in my own life.  I have put much thought into whether or not I should post this as a blog for a class assignment, but I find its content to be relevant to the class and sincerely personal at the same time.  I know it has nothing to do with the important content of anthropology class during the last three weeks, but I feel it is a good thing to write about and share.

A relationship with a man from Saudi Arabia has consumed my life for the past two years.  He was an HPU graduate.  This relationship brought me an insurmountable amount of knowledge of one of our worlds largest religions.  It has taught me about the culture of a country which the United States has strong economic ties with and depends upon for our energy needs.  It has made me appreciate being an American woman.  It brought me closer to God and the earth.  It made me love and honor my mom more than anyone can imagine.  I plan to write a book about my experience.  I feel that the institution of committed relationships, especially marriage, are important and significant subjects to discuss in anthropology.  Interesting things are going to happen in this world during this time of globalization, and I feel that cross-cultural relationships will play a significant role in the changes of cultural norms and mores throughout the world.


My first serious relationship ever with this man has just ended.  He sent me and email, abruptly ending it.  I have changed names of people in this blog.  This is a portion of my response, which I have realized depicts a part of where I fit in to today's culture, religion, and the environment...

Abdul,

....  I know that you are most likely engaged right now and getting married very soon, and that you probably have been engaged since you initially broke up with me at the end of May of this year.  If you were engaged in May, then it is an absolute shame that you were dishonest to me, my mother, yourself, your family, and your future wife and her family and continued to talk to me as a committed partner.  If this is true, it is terrible that you met me in England  ....  You continued our relationship as close to your marriage date as possible because you are too weak to be without a woman. I hope you do not hurt your future wife. 

I went into our relationship completely not knowing anything about your culture nor of the beautiful religion of Islam.  I have discussed our relationship to many of my Muslim sisters, including some from your own country, and came to find out that your behavior at the very beginning of our relationship was not that of a good man.  If you were sincere about your love for me at the very beginning, you would have done everything in your power to not allow me to live in the same apartment with two other Saudi men.  You would have displayed a real problem with me talking to these men.  You took many pictures of me on our first date before you dropped me off at the airport because I was your prize to show off.  You wanted me to look perfect at your graduation because I was your prize to show to all your sick friends from Saudi. 

My Muslim sisters were shocked to know that an HPU graduate got a job at Sabic.  They asked me if you have any connections, and I said no.  They said only Harvard grads and people from elite schools get this job.  I want to remind you that I wrote your CV, your cover letter, and your personal statement.  Yes, you had the ideas, but I wrote it.  Talking to me for hours each day while you were getting paid at this job was so dishonest of you.  I am partly responsible, but it is the only time I could talk to you because you supposedly did not have internet at home. Or did you?...and you just didn’t want to show your family that you were still talking to me while you are engaged. 

A true man coming from your culture and religion, especially, would be saddened by his beloved spending thousands and thousands of dollars on flights to come see him.  A true man would have shown more compassion for the woman that had to find a random family to wait with for 13 hours in Cairo.  A true man would have showed so much emotion and expressed so much more concern for taking the virginity of an innocent young woman  ....  I have consulted with my Muslim sisters and brothers, and they told me a true man would have shown the least bit of concern for taking virginity, but you did not.  I know I have been forgiven when I said my Shahada.  Alhamdulellah, I feel like a virgin again.

.... I have finally revealed to my mother all of the things you have done to me and all that I know about you.  She is disgusted in you because you lied to her face and said you would take care of her daughter.  You hurt my mother a lot because you hurt her daughter.  You made me spend thousands of dollars, you took my virginity with showing no concern, you let me live with your two disgusting drunken roommates in a room filled with cigarette smoke, you told me that I needed to lose weight, you told me that you were with sexier women in the past, and you left me stranded in Cairo for 13 hours before we met and 10 hours after you left for home just so you could save money on airfare and so you could rest for a day before your new job.  A true man would go out of his way to protect his beloved in a dangerous airport in a place completely foreign to her.  He would spend the extra money to come early and sacrifice sleep and rest to stay late so that he could be with the woman he is committed to. 

A person’s friends tell a lot about someone.  I should have seen this.  Birds of a feather flock together.  And you still associate with these drunken men that are ruining the lungs Allah gave them and talk to sleezy girls.  You still let them take advantage of you.  You have showed me how weak of a man you are.  I should have known better when you told me you got drunk when you went to England last November.  I should have never allowed you to drink a beer in Sharm El Sheikh.

I now know what a true Muslim man is because I now know Islam.  You are a good man.  Your heart is good, but I need to be with a true Muslim man that takes his Islam more seriously and that strives to live like the Prophet Muhammed, peace be upon him.  I started studying Islam not because I saw you pray occasionally or because you brought me to the mosque once, no.  I started studying Islam because I wanted to see if the way you lived was Islamic.  I wanted to see if littering was something Muhammed would do, if having sex before marriage was ok, if having one beer every now and then with your buddies was ok, if being so consumed in materialism was good, and if dominion over the earth was helal.  I wanted to speak the language of Islam so I could convince you that these things were not ok.  I found out that Islam teaches that none of this is good.  I want to clarify with you that I do not practice Islam now because you are a Muslim.  I practice because I am sincere in my worship to Allah.

I am so surprised at your culture and how materialistic it has become, even though your country is an “Islamic State”.  I am appalled about how Saudi Arabia treats its women.  My Saudi sisters think there will be a revolution when the king and his brother die.  I hope that there will be, so that women can become empowered there.  I hope that the earth that Allah gave us will heal and that the threat of your materialism and your country’s greed will stop. 

I believe that Allah allowed the timing of the end of our relationship to be perfect.  I believe if we stopped talking to each other after you initially broke up with me in May and if we didn’t go to Europe, I wouldn’t have and never could have understood who you are.  I wouldn’t have had the support of all the beautiful Muslim sisters at the mosque and those from your country during this time of grief.  I would not have had all their clarification about you and what Islam truly is and what a good man truly is.  I am so grateful to Allah for all my blessings:  My freedom.  My dignity.  My mind. My spirituality.  His forgiveness.  My family. My friends. My beautiful country.….all that I wouldn’t have if I came to marry you and lived in Saudi Arabia.  Why do all these Saudi men come to America to make innocent women fall in love and give everything they have to these men just to leave their beloved to marry a wife that they will be unhappy with and untrue to?

Thank God I don’t have to spend any more hours waiting around to talk to you.  No longer do I have to experience the grief of when you would miss the times we planned to meet.  Now I can go on with my beautiful and happy life, pursue an honest career, and be close to my family in my free country.  Inshallah, I will one day marry a man that is like me… passionate about life and the environment, sincere in his prayers, not lazy, and that is truly physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy.  I will choose a man that I can move forward with…not one that holds me back.  I will be with a man that is honest.

I know you initially came into our relationship in December 2009, wanting a cheap woman that would give you sex.  I knew then by how you looked at my breasts on our first date and how you made out with me immediately when I flew back to Honolulu.  But I rationalized a lot of things you did by overlooking them or trying to justify your behaviors and actions.  You eventually found out that I wasn’t this cheap woman.  I am a woman of wisdom, strength, and dignity, and you fell in love with this. I confronted you on some of your behaviors, and you did, indeed, change for the better over time.  I know you fell in love with me, and I fell in love with you.  We both did get to experience true love for moments in our relationship.  But this love is diluted and contaminated by your past and your present dishonesty and weakness.  I don’t want to be with you, alhamdulellah. 

Abdul, I know you are taking good care of your family, and I commend you for this.  It is so honorable.  Be good to your wife, start being more honest with others and with yourself, and practice your beautiful religion with sincerity at every moment.  I know for a fact, you will be good to your children.  You are a good man.  You just need help.  I thank Allah for all the good times he gave us together.  I will never forget them.  You just need to know what you did to me and that it hurts.  If you acknowledge and apologize for what you did, it will help you heal and grow.  If you don’t, I understand that you are weak.  Now that you know how I truly feel, we can both move on, alhamdullelah.  

As-Salamu `Alaykum, brother.

Sincerely,

Clarice

IMF and World Bank Involvement in African Famine

Response to 9/8/11 alternet.org article, Food Emergency: How the World Bank and IMF Have Made African Famine Inevitable by Rania Khalek

“The hungry starve as scarce land and water are diverted to provide luxuries for rich consumers in Northern countries.” ~ Vandana Shiva 

It is nearly impossible to believe that in less than 50 years, East Africa has gone from having an abundance of food to mass starvation.  The media continues to inundate the public with many serious reasons for why the Sub-Saharan hunger crisis has persisted and intensified for the past five decades.  The news does tell us how record droughts, rising food prices, biofuel production and land grabs by foreign investors, and terrorist groups have all caused the starvation of hundreds of thousands of people in East Africa.  It certainly cannot be denied that these are true causes for the tragedy that continues to worsen in East Africa. But these circumstances alone did not cause the famine.  Unfortunately, mainstream media sources have not revealed how policies of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank are major contributing factors to what has led Africa further into despair.  

Because a changing climate, rising food prices, land grabs, and biofuel production are occurring in every country, there must be more reasoning behind the disasters in Africa, especially since East Africa was, as the article states, “…a food net exporter between 1966 and 1970, with an average of 1.3 million tons of food exported each year” (Khalek, 2011).  Less than five decades is a reasonably short period of time for region to go from food abundance and security to mass starvation.  Khalek goes on to explain how the influence of two administrations of Reagan and Thatcher were able to instill certain programs, such as Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPS), that were carried out by the IMF and the World Bank as a means to accomplish their pro-corporatist end.  In the name of promoting the “free-market”, SAPs required massive privatization and deregulation in developing countries.  

The agenda of the SAPs entailed cutting much needed government subsidies for small farms, removing tariffs, selling most of the region’s food and grain reserves, and encouraging cash crop exports to the west while promoting massive importation of expensive goods from the US and Europe.  Khalek states, “Ironically, as they demanded that African states eliminate subsidies for small-scale farmers, the United States and Europe continued to provide their agricultural sectors with billions of dollars in subsidies, forcing peasant farmers to compete with an influx of cheap, subsidized commercial staples from the west—clearly a losing battle.” The initiatives also caused mounting debt instead of fostering intended economic growth. The insurmountable debt of Sub-Saharan Africa has forced the region’s governments to spend their capital on debt repayment rather than investing in for instance, education and health care.  

From this particular article, it has been made clear that individual politicians and interests groups throughout history have had tremendous influence in the say of international organizations.  At this moment in time, there must be more transparency to the general public about the historical context and reasoning behind the current crises in Sub-Saharan Africa so that the broken food system may be fixed.  Unfortunately, this probably won’t happen because powerful international organizations do not want to take responsibility for their actions of wealth-seeking self-interests that caused so much havoc. 

History repeats itself.  This is not the first time when the wealth of the privileged has come from that of the vulnerable.  Throughout history, governments have been able to conceal the reasoning behind certain circumstances.  It is still happing in our own country, especially with American Indians, Native Hawaiians, and the indigenous people of Alaska.  The lands of the indigenous peoples of these regions already have been and are now being stripped bare of soil, energy, water, and food resources so that wealthy Westerners may live a superfluous lavish lifestyle, while Indians are put on reservations and spend their whole lives suffering in poverty.  The government still does not want to reveal that they were responsible for most of this destruction.  Now, the same thing is happening on an international scale.  I honestly do not know how we can confront this economic violence.  I am glad, though, that it is becoming clearer to a small minority of the population.  Now, we must spread the word, elect better politicians, and proactively question the corrupt system that exists today so that there is hope for the future of all indigenous people.

 

Pono. Anthropology 9/8/11

Thursday, 9/8/11

First of all, I would like to thank Lynette Cruz for bringing food to the class.  This meant a lot to me because it was comforting and welcoming and since I didn't have dinner tonight. I find myself skipping meals as food prices have really gone up in the last three years...too bad the state hasn't done much to promote local agriculture.  I say that we should get students more involved with developing HPU's organic/GMO-free garden right on the beautiful windward campus!

Pono

"When something feels right, it is pono." ~Lynette Cruz, HPU Anthropology Lecture

I believe that human beings are born decent with intuitive capabilities.  Apart from their surroundings, a baby child is in a state of harmony and balance.  Children are innocent, and for the most part, they spend the first years of their childhood being taught virtuous qualities and strong moral values.  Even though they may sometimes be rebellious, they naturally seek what is good, go where they feel safe and comfortable, and rarely intend to inflict emotional or physical pain on themselves or other human beings.  

When and how do children start to loose this innocence and morality?  Surely, in our Western culture, the media and the family institution are greatest influences on young vulnerable minds.  Unfortunately, it is this vulnerability that makes it difficult for children to decipher right from wrong.  It may feel completely comfortable for a young girl to dress up scandalously on the TV show, Toddlers in Tiaras, even though it isn't pono because of the potentially harmful consequences and the tainted reactions of the people who view the innocent little girl as something she is not.  An innocent child may feel completely as ease mindlessly partaking in violent video games, rapping along to a sadistic song, or pretending to be a killer.  They see their parents and celebrity role models doing similar things, so it must be ok.  Perhaps this is one reason why there is often a great sense of denial and ignorance when it comes to living an ethical lifestyle in our modern world.

But when these adolescents grow and learn to distinguish and know why certain things and actions are immoral and out of touch with nature, it makes less sense why people continue to act in certain ways that do not benefit the true well-being of themselves, their family, or society.  When people have just the smallest amount of knowledge of the repercussions of their actions is when they can be able to choose pono.  

Pono is a gift from God.  It is a gut-feeling that offers great protection from danger.  It is the slightest amount of shame or the greatest amount guilt one feels when they do something that may hurt someone or something in anyway.  The more we utilize this gift, the happier we can be in our lives. Unfortunately, people do indeed have the ability to ignore this gift, and the more that it is ignored, the less able a person is to distinguish what is, essentially, right from wrong.  This is one of the reasons why we have, ruthless dictators, domestic violence, and billion dollar corporations that pollute the land and carryout unfair labor practices.

I believe that it is time for our society to make it a greater priority to do what feels right rather than what will make a person rich or powerful.   Wealth and power really don’t bring happiness to a person.  It almost sounds overly optimistic and too simple.  But there is much power in feeling.  Our society must redefine success.  Great triumphs really can only be attained through ethical choices that feel right.  This needs to be taught.  People need to see how unhappy and miserable our world’s richest and most powerful people are.  Society needs to see the damage many of these people have done to the environment and communities rather than idolizing their wealth and glamour.