Gwyneth's personal blog

Tuesday 17th June, cool air, sun and blue sky; silver-rimmed clouds . . . I don't think I've ever seen a cloud with a silver lining, but the effect today is pretty, without being platitudinous. This entry dedicated to Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman at present imprisoned with her 20 month old son and new baby daughter, sentenced to death by hanging for "apostasy" (she was brought up a Christian and married a Christian; her Muslim father left her mother when she was six), and "adultery" on the grounds of her marriage outside Islam. Her husband, a wheelchair user, supports her in her refusal to recant, and says he doesn't believe she'll back down. I think he may be right: she looks like a proud woman. She was denounced for her marriage by "Muslim relatives": the police tried to dismiss the case, the relatives came back with the charge of adultery, and somehow made it stick (CNN). Global outcry might save her, so continue to spread the word. There's a facebook page, needless to say, and Amnesty International is involved. As are we Europeans, Hooray!

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-14-186_en.htm

Years ago, when I wrote "Life" (working title, The Differences Between The Sexes) I had one of my characters, a Malaysian human rights lawyer, tell another, "Anna, where you and I lived at University, Women's Rights is old news. Intelligent women want to be judged on their own merits and find the whole feminist thing embarassing and whiney. But here, where I live it's a can of worms. If you start applying the concept of human rights to women's lives in Africa, in Asia, you uncover a holocaust. And it's getting worse, not better. "

Two things have changed since around the year 2000*, approximately when I wrote that. One is globalisation. The holocaust is no longer far away, no longer out of our sight, it's in our midst. Honour killings and forced marriage are inescapably a global issue now. Female Genital Mutilation is practised with impunity, performed by qualified doctors, in the UK . . . The other is that the billions of women suffering that silent, immemorial holocaust, women still oppressed by staggering cruelty, are speaking up: with their own voices, insisting on opening the can of worms, and even making men listen, sometimes. It's horrible to see what happens to the martyrs in this cause, but I can only support them, and speak out in solidarity.

For what it's worth.


https://secure.avaaz.org/en/womanifesto_modi_rb_loc/?tknnDab

(I expect you've signed that petition. If not, please do. But then try typing Petition against rape into a search engine of your choice. See what you get: it's a corrective.


*No, wait, there's a third thing. Young women seem less likely to regard feminism as whiney and redundant, right now . . . But I'm not sure that's a positive sign.

Looking forward to another trip to Woods Mill (Sussex Wildlife Trust Reserve) this evening. Last week, with the moon nearly full in a clear blue evening sky, we sat and watched a pair of kestrels and a barn owl hunting in the meadow. One cuckoo calling in the distance, a tapestry of birdsong filling the air.