Tag: human-rights

HUMAN EQUALITY

Darznik’s novel is based on a woman who believed and acted on a conviction that men and women are created equal.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Song of a Captive Bird

By: Jasmin Darznik

Narrated By: Mozhan Marno

Jasmin Darznik (Iranian born American author with a BA from the University of California and a PhD in English literature from Princeton.)

“…Captive Bird” is classified as a novel. However, it is loosely based on the life of Iranian poet, Forugh Farrokhzad, who defied the traditions of mid-twentieth century Iranian culture. Today’s Iranian culture would undoubtedly be as anti-Farrokhzad as the 1950’s culture in which she lived.

Forugh Farrokhzad

Iranian poet and painter born in Tehran in 1934, died at age 32 from a car accident in 1967.

If even a small part of Darznik’s novel is based on true events, Forugh Farrokhzad was an extraordinary human being who symbolized the truth of sexual equality. In one of the most patriarchal countries in the world, Ms. Farrokhzad rebelled against a conservative and myopic view of women’s rights.

Jasmin Darznik characterizes Farrokhzad as a trailblazer who believed and lived a life of sexual equality.

The story Darznik tells is of a human being choosing to livelife in whatever way her mind and emotions led. Darznik’s heroine fought the restrictions of women’s inequality in a country riven with militant patriarchy. Farrokhzad’s history is one of rebellion against her father, a colonel in the Iranian army, and the societal taboos of Iran, many of which are resurrected in today’s Iranian government.

Darznik’s story is of a woman who acts like a free man, chooses her sexual partners, leaves her husband and only child, and seeks fame as a poet in a land renowned for poetry.

Like a man or any human being, Farrokhzad has sexual desires and ambitions to be something more than a footnote in history. Like husbands who leave their children through divorce or separation, Farrokhzad leaves her son. It is the same habit of many absent fathers who may love their children, but choose, like Farrokhzad, to pursue life beyond being a mother or father.

The world is beginning to understand women and men are 99.9 percent the same with fractional differences for conception, and strength.

The desire for sex, money, power and/or prestige are the same for all human beings. What is remarkable about Farrokhzad life is that she seems to have recognized that belief in one of the most patriarchal countries in the world. The way Farrokhzad lived her life, as reflected by the author, shows why men and women should be treated equally.

This is not a lesson many men or women are willing to learn because it challenges societies definitions of masculinity and femininity. The value of learning that lesson is in the liberation of humanity.

What is not mentioned in Darsnik’s novel is that Farrkhzad was also an artist.

This is a painting done by Farrokhzad despite her principal feminist reputation as a poet in the conservative culture of Iran in the 1950s.

The author’s story suggests Farrokhzad’s father commits her to an asylum after estrangement from her family and her rejection of female inequality. In the asylum, Farrokhzad is heavily sedated and subjected to shock treatments that make her catatonic. She is rescued with her father’s decision to allow her to leave the asylum in the care of a rich Iranian woman. This benefactress is a fellow traveler in Farrokhzad’s belief about women. Farrokhzad eventually recovers from her catatonia and continues her liberated life.

Though the dates Farrokhzad’s real life do not match historical events in Iran, Darznik captures the essence of a remarkable Iranian woman.

The shah of Iran, Mohammad Pahlavi is deposed in 1979. The author conflates the history of the oil industry’s unfair monopolization by Great Britain, the King’s departure and Farrokhzad’s storied life. She tragically dies in a car accident in 1967 at the age of 32. (Some suggest the car accident is suspicious.)

Darznik’s novel is a compelling argument for sexual equality. It is based on a woman who believed and acted on a conviction that men and women are created equal. The author’s story is particularly impactful because the woman she alludes to is born in a country that is among the most patriarchal in the world.

RAISED FIST

American Democracy will either fail or evolve by choosing to ignore or address the stated purposes of the Constitution.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Solitary: Unbroken by four decades in solitary confinement. My story of transformation and hope”

By: Albert Woodfox

Narrated By: JD Jackson

Albert Woodfox, (1947-2022) Author who spent 43 years in solitary confinement in Louisiana’s Angola prison.

Woodfox dies at the age of 75 after being released in 2016.

“Solitary” is about American injustice on many levels. Every societal injustice is magnified by America’s penal system. There is racial discrimination, healthcare disparity, legal system bias, and law enforcement use-of-force to name the most prominent magnifications. Albert Woodfox’s story is a lived life in prison that exposes those levels of societal injustice.

Woodfox’s book is about America’s prison system, but it addresses growing up in the baby-boom generation.

Woodfox, like every human being, is a prisoner of mind but he becomes a physical prisoner in Angola, one of many prisons in America. Woodfox’s tragic life appears emblematic of many poverty-stricken baby-boomer’ lives in the 1960s. His story tells the world what it was, and undoubtedly still is, to live life in America when you are poor, ill-educated, living in a broken home, and/or Black.

Albert is born in Louisiana to a Black father (who retires after 25 years in the Navy) and a loving illiterate Black mother.

When Albert is a young child, his mother is compelled to leave her husband because he becomes a violent abuser after retiring from the Navy. Albert is raised in New Orleans by a single parent. His mother struggles to feed and clothe Albert and his siblings. Albert’s life in New Orleans includes petty theft and the troubles of untethered youth in a home where a single parent is not present because he/she is working to feed and house the family.

After several releases and returns to Angola, in 1971 Albert becomes known as an acolyte of the Black Panthers.

Albert grows up tough and independent but without purpose in his life. He quits school and evolves from petty criminal to armed robber. He first becomes acquainted with the Black Panther movement when he is jailed in New York. Association with the Panther movement changes his life. He is arrested and imprisoned in New York. He becomes a participant in the New York prison riots and adopts much of the Black Panther philosophy, i.e., a belief in Black nationalism, socialism and armed self-defense in the face of white discrimination. Albert began to believe in himself, improving his education by reading, and more importantly, respecting what is right in his life rather than what is expedient.

Woodfox is released from the New York prison system but is remanded to Angola for escaping the Louisiana prison system from an earlier crime.

He finds Angola is the same pit of despair it was when he was first imprisoned in Louisiana. Angola remains poorly maintained and continues to treat inmates, particularly Black inmates, inhumanely. However, Albert’s life is changed by the Panther’ philosophy. He begins to feel there is purpose in his life. His purpose becomes uniting prisoners (the Black Panther’ symbol of a closed fist meaning a “coming together” like the 5 fingers of a hand). Black prisoners come together in an effort to improve their treatment and education in prison. He allies himself with another devotee to begin a chapter of the Panther’ movement in the Angola prison.

The Black Panther movement began in 1966 with Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Their plan was to unify African Americans to challenge police brutality in Oakland, California.

The movement failed because of internal tension, the FBI’s successful effort to undermine the movement, and determined white American resistance. Despite the demise of the movement, the idea of unifying African Americans against white privilege and unequal treatment survived despite the fall of the Black Panther movement. The movement has had a lasting impact on prison reform, community programs to improve education, and health services in poor black communities.

In 1974, Albert Woodfox is tried and convicted for murdering Brent Miller, a prison guard who is a third-generation guard at the Angola prison farm on which inmates worked. There is no concrete evidence to show Woodfox murdered Miller

He is put in solitary and remains in solitary for 40 years where he spends 23 hours a day with 1 hour for prison-yard exercise per day. That one hour per day is reduced to 3 hours a week in his last year of imprisonment. Amazingly, Woodfox survives and after several appeals, delayed and fought by the State of Louisiana, Woodfox is released to die a free man.

“Solitary” is an amazing tribute to the strength and resilience of human beings.

Woodfox becomes a self-educated American despite his horrendous treatment in the American prison system. He, and other prisoners, expose the failure of the American penal system to be more than an incarceration system to separate criminals from the general public. In that exposure, Woodfox shows changes were made in Angola and other prisons but far from turning prison into the rehabilitative need of society.

The fundamental cause of America’s failure is not achieving the stated purpose of equal opportunity for all in the Constitution of the United States.

The inferences one draws from “Solitary” reinforces America’s need to address the root causes of failure in its prison system. All men are created equal. America must improve government policies that assure the health, education, and welfare of its citizens. Woodfox’s story of Angola suggests socialism will cure the ills of American society. The truth seems more to be whether American Democracy will evolve or fail by choosing to ignore or address the stated purposes of the Constitution.

OCCUPATION

“Apeirogon” is a little too repetitive for this reviewer, but it is cleverly written and shows why political and military occupation is a fool’s leadership style.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Apeirogon” (A Novel)

By: Colum McCann

Narrated by: Colum McCann

Colum McCann (Author, Irish writer living in New York.)

At first the idea of an Irish author writing a book about Israel seems incongruous. After the first few paragraphs, one realizes Colum McCann grasps a truth about religious conflict that is far better than most because of Ireland’s “Troubles” between the 1960s and 1990s.

“Apeirogon” is timely novel in regard to Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas attack in Gaza. A little history helps one understand the complexity and terrible consequence of the slaughter of innocents.

An estimated 30,228 people have been killed in Gaza, 12,000 of which are thought to be Hamas combatants.

Gaza dates back to Egyptian times, populated by Canaanites who share an ancestral connection to Israelites. Gaza later became part of the Assyrian Empire in 730 BC. Assyrians intermixed with Canaanites, Israelites, Philistines and undoubtedly Palestinians. History shows historical connection between ancient Assyrians and Palestinians just as there were with Israelites. However, Israelites were forcibly relocated to Assyria from the Kingdom of Israel. Because the Israelites were descendants of the Canaanites, they predated Palestinian settlement in Gaza. Ethnic precedent and the want of land area is a part of what complicates the idea of a separate Palestinian state. Where is a homeland for a Palestinian state going to come from?

McCann chose a perfect title for his novel. An apeirogon is a geometric shape that has an infinite number of sides; just like the many sides of Israeli/Palestinian arguments for a homeland. Column McCann cleverly explores these arguments in his novel. He creates a series of Israeli/Palestinian incidents that show how each ethnic culture believes and acts in their perceived self-interests. Every chapter is titled as a series of numbers that begin with the number 1, jumps from 500 to the number 1001; then jumps back to 500 and descends to number 1 to end his story. Revelation comes in 1001. Occupation is an evil that cannot stand.

America’s civil war carries some parallels to what is happening in Israel and Gaza.

What is revelatory about McCann’s novel is its similarities to America’s civil war that ended the lives of too many Americans. Today’s conflict in Gaza is instigated by Hamas just as the Civil War was instigated by southern slave holders. America eventually forgave southern slave holders, but Black Americans continue to suffer from institutional racism. Can a one state solution as demanded by Israel’s conservatives serve Palestinians any better than white America has served Black Americans? America’s civil war ended in 1865-1866, some 158 years later, Black Americans are still discriminated against. Can Palestinians wait more than 158 years to have equal rights in an Israeli nation?

McCann’s novel repeats, too many times, the unfairness of Israel’s occupation of Gaza. Hamas has its rebellious leaders like America had John Brown who killed one Marine, wounded another, and killed six civilians. Neither Brown nor the Hamas leaders can justify their murders though both argue with righteous conviction. The United States could have split between abolitionist and non-abolitionist states, or they could move toward reconciliation. Obviously, the U.S. government prevailed with reconciliation. It seems imperative for Israeli and Palestinian leaders to take the same road as Abraham Lincoln. Hamas is a splinter group like that led by America’s John Brown. Their objective is as horribly misguided as Brown’s. Hamas’s hostage taking and murder of Jewish settlers is as reprehensible as Brown’s murders of a Marine and six civilians.

ISRAEL’S OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE

As difficult as it may be, a two-state solution seems unlikely. What American history suggests is as difficult as America has found reconciliation to be for white America’s murder and unjust treatment of Black Americans. That reconciliation remains a work in progress. However, only union offers a way toward peace. America is not there yet but it is making progress.

Two political factions, bound by both religion and ethnicity, must learn to live with each other for peace to be achieved.

There is no other land for Palestinians. Israel may have the older of the two cultures, and both Israelites and Palestinians have a much longer history of religious and ethnic difference than America. America is founded on religious freedom and equality, though not perfect in either principle. In contrast, religion is a primary determinant in Palestinian and Israeli cultures while equality seems a less prominent concern. Peace will not come without hardship, but a beginning is dependent on Israel’s abandonment of occupation. It will be one country’s leaders’ imperative to provide equal opportunity for all its citizens. The struggle will be long as is shown by America’s history but what realistic alternative is there for the Israeli and Palestinian people? What neighboring country is likely to give up their land to create a two state solution?

“Apeirogon” is a little too repetitive for this reviewer, but it is cleverly written and shows why political and military occupation is a fool’s leadership style. Israel, like white America, needs to do better in reconciling ethnic differences.