Monthly Archives: August 2013

PAKISTAN GAY CYBER-PRIDE SENT BY TAHIR MAHMOOD IN AL-JAZEERA

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Karachi, Pakistan – Pakistan’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community has launched a website in a hostile cyberspace in which the government blocks thousands of sites for displaying “objectionable and offensive” material.

“Queer Pakistan”, launched last month, aims to act as a virtual support group for an LGBT community on the fringes of mainstream society that has no other platform to interact with one another. The site already has an estimated 8,000 users.

The website attempts to provide psychological support, counselling and networking while raising awareness about sexual health in a country where the topic is rarely discussed in schools or families.

“The LGBT community in Pakistan is a vulnerable group. They exist, but the mainstream society just looks the other way,” explained Noman*, who helped spearhead the initiative. “This website is our way of breaking the silence and shame that surrounds us.”

In our society, there is not even basic sex education in schools – it is impossible for people to know about things like an identity crisis or prevention of HIV.- Noman*

In Pakistan, a tightly guarded silence surrounds the issue of homosexuality, which is religiously and legally condemned – making it very rare for those with a different sexual orientation to acknowledge this openly.

Homosexuality remains an offence under Pakistan’s penal code, by which a person voluntarily engaging in intercourse “against the order” of nature can be sentenced to 2-10 years in jail – or, in some instances, to death.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/08/201386115346584582.html

RAMADAN RENDEZOUS

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Ramadan inspiration and a daily iman boost brought to you by Noor Tagouri and Lema Sbenaty.

Final Reflections of a Non Muslim Fasting: First Eid and Lessons from Ramadan

Libyan Embassy Eid Celebration

A very happy (and belated) Eid Mubarak to you all!! A hearty congratulations is in order for everyone who successfully completed this month of Ramadan! It sounds like such a cliché, but I truly can’t believe how fast the time flew.

The first day of Eid was certainly an interesting experience. I guess I had grown accustomed to the feeling of thirst and hunger because I kept forgetting that I was allowed to eat and drink again. It actually felt weird when I had my first sip of water during daylight hours, and after my first lunch in 30 days I couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt.

Don’t worry, that didn’t last long. The Eid celebrations that followed washed away whatever guilt that remained. I wouldn’t be human if I could resist the edible temptations that come with that holiday. Eid al-Fitr is basically like Islamic Christmas, and lasts several days. Gifts are given, faces and bellies are stuffed, and everyone is both thankful to be alive and eating/drinking during the day again.

 

http://ramadanrendezvous.com/post/58212794323/final-reflections-of-a-non-muslim-fasting-first-eid

 

Marissa Par

Monogamy An Evolutionary Puzzle !

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By Carl Zimmer in NYT

“Monogamy is a problem,” said Dieter Lukas of the University of Cambridge in a telephone news conference last week. As Dr. Lukas explained to reporters, he and other biologists consider monogamy an evolutionary puzzle.

In 9 percent of all mammal species, males and females will share a common territory for more than one breeding season, and in some cases bond for life. This is a problem — a scientific one — because male mammals could theoretically have more offspring by giving up on monogamy and mating with lots of females.

In a new study, Dr. Lukas and his colleague Tim Clutton-Brock suggest that monogamy evolves when females spread out, making it hard for a male to travel around and fend off competing males.

On the same day, Kit Opie of University College London and his colleagues published a similar study on primates, which are especially monogamous — males and females bond in over a quarter of primate species. The London scientists came to a different conclusion: that the threat of infanticide leads males to stick with only one female, protecting her from other males.

Even with the scientific problem far from resolved, research like this inevitably turns us into narcissists. It’s all well and good to understand why the gray-handed night monkey became monogamous. But we want to know: What does this say about men and women?

As with all things concerning the human heart, it’s complicated.

“The human mating system is extremely flexible,” Bernard Chapais of the University of Montreal wrote in a recent review in Evolutionary Anthropology. Only 17 percent of human cultures are strictly monogamous. The vast majority of human societies embrace a mix of marriage types, with some people practicing monogamy and others polygamy. (Most people in these cultures are in monogamous marriages, though.)

There are even some societies where a woman may marry several men. And some men and women have secret relationships that last for years while they’re married to other people, a kind of dual monogamy. Same-sex marriages acknowledge commitments that in many cases existed long before they won legal recognition. Click link for full article;

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/science/monogamys-boost-to-human-evolution.html?ref=science&_r=0

Posted By F. Sheikh