Egyptian girl strips to protest; western media censors her photos

SAM tends to think of us (to her, the out-group) as all alike. Is that not predictable?

We tend to think of her (to us, a member of the out-group) as like 'all of them'

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype

I suspect SAM is an independent thinker, although I have never been to Mumbai to know that...
(Although I do note that a number of people from India I have met tend to be...um, how can I put this? New York City blunt?
...last year, my wife was told by a telescammer from Mumbai to stick the phone up her a$$, so she sincerely extended wishes that a poisonous snake would eat his balls, and it went downhill from there...

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Yeah, I have reason to believe Mumbai people are just a little culturally edgy...)

Meaning SAM probably gets on a lot of nerves everywhere.

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Reminds me of the person I'm married to, a bit...

So...as I was describing this thread to the attack wife...she said "You mean, they get mad when she stereotypes them like we stereotype her?"

I said "Yup. Pretty much."
Do y'all disagree with that assessment?

 

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It's a defining, characteristic feature of out-group conceptions, of course.

We agree that Othering, while possibly unavoidable, is a fraught and dangerous pursuit, yes?

Who is this "we?" I don't see where I've dealt with S.A.M. as anything other than an individual, nor held her accountable for any sentiments other than those that she has advanced. If I'm wrong about that, well, show me where.

I reject the assertion that I am implicated in stereotyping Muslims (or whoever) simply because of my nationality, even if such out-group conceptions feature in the hegemonic discourses in my society. The refusal to so differentiate between individuals on the basis of their relationship to said discourses, is itself a form of out-group stereotyping, and one that is designed exactly to empower such hostile dialectics and silence individual agency to resist such. It is not a program that any thinking person should endorse or even, in my view, tolerate.

In this day and age, and specific context, you should be looking for transnational websites like Mondoweiss and a few others that she frequently links to, if you're searching for a group-think category to place S.A.M. into.

I don't know about all that, but it is a big city...

I would, again, resist the temptation to attribute that to anything larger than her own individual personality, absent some fairly strong, clear evidence. I know plenty of Mumbaikars and if they're any more difficult to get along with than anyone else, I sure haven't noticed. Telemarketters are probably not the most representative sample of a particular city's politesse (or lack thereof). You've probably met obnoxious people from pretty much every group that you've had much experience with - isn't the idea that certain groups are inherently more obnoxious than others itself just an ugly stereotype of some out-group?

It raises three points:

1) Are the actual individuals complaining about this guilty of stereotyping S.A.M. (or whoever)? Or is this just another iteration of the obtuse "some subset of the West is construed as stereotyping Muslims, therefor no Westerner anywhere can complain about S.A.M. stereotyping them?"

2) If stereotyping is offensive - and I'd contend that it is - then it's offensive when S.A.M. does it as well. Two wrongs don't make a right, so if she's going to complain about anyone else stereotyping her, then she has an obligation not to do the same. In that case, she will find allies who also don't like the stereotypes. Otherwise, she manifestly does not oppose stereotyping in principle, and only invokes such opposition in a craven, cynical way, and we should refuse to grant such complaints any consideration - they're nothing more than pretenses to draw us into a debased flamewar.

3) Even if we take your charitable view - that she's stereotyping the stereotypers to thwart them - that is still a textbook case of trolling. Unsurprisingly, such ostensibly-subversive troll programs pretty much never work. Pushing people into an oppositional mode does not foster self-awareness or charitable behavior. It hardens their positions and energizes their bigotry, and the result is a flamewar between opposed bigots, with all of the reasonable people silenced and/or disgusted.

Overall: these cheap games of equivocation appeal to a certain type of smug troll, but rapidly collapse upon serious consideration. They are nothing more than expressions of bigotry, packaged to inflame. The gratuitous aspects of this thread should have tipped everyone off to this quite a few posts back, in fact.

 

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While it is by no means a definitive response, I would point out that the question of equivocation also touches on the question of origins.

In American politics, for instance, we have the "both parties" argument. We also have the "marketplace of ideas" argument. Yet ne'er the twain should meet, lest people figure out something like, "Oh, hey. That's right. Sure, both sides use attack ads, but that's only because the marketplace efficacy of the attack ad is demonstrable."

To metaphorically combine the intellectual and financial marketplaces, 'tis true that two people can be shareholders in a company. But do those people, by dint of being shareholders, exist in parity? Or is it that the one who has enough shares to sit on the board of Mondocorp International have a bit more say, and therefore culpability, than the guy who can't afford to buy enough shares to have even a vote at the shareholders' meeting? So when the board runs Mondocorp into the ground, can we say that Mr. Fewshares is equally culpable to Mr. Boardmember?

And, yes, I recognize there is a thick metaphorical adjustment taking place, but I think we can get back to my point in this post. I'm sympathetic to S.A.M.'s argument in this because the comparison she points out makes the American outlook seem either arbitrary or else systematic only according to neurotic dysfunction.

So for me, part of what we end up with is the kind of irony that is corrosive to the soul: The brave Egyptian woman stands up to the forces of censorship and oppression that make her culture so distasteful to our outlooks. But we're going to show you censored versions of the pictures, because her tits are more offensive to us than a murdered or mangled corpse.

Oh, right: Except if the murdered or mangled corpse is an American. Then we have a problem even showing you the box his wrecked body is solemnly and reverently brought home in.

There is, to use the degenerate term, "a disconnect" about that sort of outlook.

It doesn't add up. Hell, I'm of the opinion that we should be showing Aliaa Magda Elmahdy's "naughty bits" in all their glory. Full zoom. High definition. From flat-panel corner to sixty-inch corner. This is one time I would be happy to rub a foreign culture's nose in it.

Except, well, we can't, because Americans are neurotic prudes without a shred of moral fiber.

 

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Our media covers the story of her putting a nude picture of herself on a website because of her protesting artistic oppression in Egypt and we cover the reasons she gives for doing this and provide links to her Web site should anyone want to see the actual protest pictures (which gets about 2 million hits in no time) and yet you think there's something wrong with our media and culture because we don't also put inline on our public media her actual nude pictures?

Since when has it been the Media's responsibilty to PROMOTE someone versus REPORT a story?

Arthur

 

Since it represents the political views of its owners.

 

This is beside the point.

I am sick of people who attempt to be social reformers, who usurp the attention of the public
- and who have nothing to offer.
They do more harm than good.


I am deeply disappointed by this young woman's protest (and her supporters).
It is cheap, it is shallow, it is ineffective.

 

No, if it is doing that, then it isn't being responsible.

 

Its being responsible to the owners, and itself (in the sense that it is taking care for its own means of existence).

There is no neutral organization of any kind to fund an independent media in whose interest would be to adequately inform the public.

 

I started a thread for this: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=111096

 

And there you are wrong.
Her image was not censored in the least.
You can see it just by going to her web site.
If it were censored you couldn't go see her site.

And instead of censoring the story quite the opposite occurred. Our media covered the story of her putting a nude picture of herself on a website because of her protesting artistic oppression in Egypt and our media covered the reasons she gave for doing this and our media provided links to her Web site should anyone want to see the actual protest pictures and yet you think there's something wrong with our media and culture because we didn't also put inline on our public media her actual nude pictures?

In other words it's not anything to do with censorship that galls you, but that our media didn't actively join in with her in her protest and publish her naked pictures from her web site on the front page of our papers.

 

Seconded.

 

as does frag for this....

...crap. i searched and found....

..that.
that indicates she supports the freedom of expression with regards to the cartoons despite certain misgivings. it is quite clear that frag disingenuously embarks on a sordid smear campaign.

 

Well, no.

I have a fair degree of personal experience with this notion, and I'm glad someone has finally brought it to the fore. The trend on SF in this area - among some posters, at least - is to treat any criticism of philosophy as an attack on a people, generally, or as the invocation of a stereotype. Criticize theocracy in Pakistan, say, and soon enough you have various posters - including mods - breathing down your neck as if you were generalizing. With some posters and some issues, there is certainly that drive, although the underlying reasons for that choice of narrative are never given, obviously.

But Sam is something of a conservative theist, and this is fairly well known. I don't accept the assertion that she's being gone after on basis of a stereotype: who is doing it? In what way do their arguments invoke such a stereotype? What constitutes this stereotype, and how does she fit within it, if so? It's not good to position the discussion in this manner, but you will certainly find those who willfully do it with malicious forethought, and in so doing, damage the forums. I think it best if we permit the ongoing criticism of philosophies, while I naturally agree that stereotyping is reprehensible. Let's be clear however that one is not the other until so proven.

 

In my opinion

Well, according to forum etiquette, I cannot do so until you double-dog dare me. But which post in this thread are you referring to? Or which thread? In any event, what I was asking for was some high representation of such a view as a majority or plurality.

I surely am unaware of this, and I see public breastfeeding happen not infrequently. In which nation do you mean this?

Naturally. Only a fool would think any person or society completely free. But I think 'the West' stands as something of a marker of a quite free society. At least in the depiction of nudes in the media we are probably equal, unless some newspaper has permitted the publication of male genitalia in a display of protest.

Well, I remain open to your evidences. I have certainly heard the 'think of the children' argument, but I find that this anxiety injects itself more into their freedoms to play and to partake in risky or seemingly risky behaviour. No more ice sliding at recess, helmets on at all times, no horseplay, and so forth. When I was a kid, one kid would piggyback on another's back and we would have 'knight fights', with one kid-and-horse pair trying to dislodge the other. People threw snowballs at school. If a kid got cross-checked in hockey, he'd just cross-check the kid back. Now it's 'run to the coach'. I suppose there has been some increase in nudity-related anxiety but I think it would be hard to separate from the background or identify meaningfully.

Possibly, but not vis-a-vis the status of women. Male nude protests aren't in the paper either. Now, as far as it goes, the West is certainly more free than numerous other places, and probably most other societies. Nonetheless, if you have evidence to the contrary, I will certainly hear it.

I don't find myself very terribly committed to it, or not so committed that I criticize other societies on basis thereof.

Well, she's a religious conservative who idolizes the likes of Mawdudi and thinks that might makes right when it comes to the treatment of religious minorities, except Islamic minorities. That strikes me as a little wrong at the very least. It's like pointing out nice things about a Nazi: sure, Hitler made the trains run on time, but I would be remiss not to wonder about the basis of the criticisms of Israel by a Nazi apologist, say.

Well, then, it might be appropriate for the irked Sam to mention, in passing at least, that the society under her critique is probably better off in that regard, say, than the society from which the protest originates and concerns. Sort of like throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater.

I'm hardly blaming her for the treatment of women by Islamists, Bells. Neither do I recall that her refutation of conservative Islamic thought on feminism and emancipation has been so thorough as you seem to be asserting. I do occasionally hold up a mirror to her own society and ask "are you really so sure about all that?" as a recommendation to look inward first. Sometimes I do so quite tartly. It's the risk of hypocrisy.

Well, ditto for the both of you, I guess. :shrug:

Is that Sam's point?

You assume those pictures were just about insult? Their sole purpose to your mind was to inflame opinion?

Ironically, by religious reactionaries, who objected to them in the first place.

The last statement being of dubious veracity, I must ask again: who censored the pictures, and how did that inflame the issue? Or do you mean the editing done by selfsame religious reactionaries? And is that censoring?

Well, that's one individual. Have you more with which to complete the set? And in which way is he cracking down on your nudie rights? Whom does he represent?

I certainly will. One of the many ways in which you and Fraggle differ is that he appears to be more honest, and forthright, and also not clinically insane. Similarly divergent from you, he is not a demonstrable religious bigot and racist, nor a viciously opportunistic liar, nor so ignorant of human discourse as to make one wonder whether or not he should be equipped with a bib and a pacifier. Nor has he suddenly discovered outrage in what he previous did not find outrageous, for reasons he knows quite well. I would speculate that you ought to feel ashamed, but I don't believe you are capable of the emotion...all of the above being, of course, in my opinion.

Just my opinion, you understand. I am not responsible for the overlaying of those common insults with utter, absolute fact - why, if indeed, they so do.

I wonder in what way that 'backstabbing' differed from yours. Excepting that I've always thought you were a poor mod, or at least once your behavioural problems (in my opinion) started up.

Strangely, I don't recall asking your opinion of me, personally. It would be rather like asking a pet that likes to make stains on the rug what it thinks of my corrective influences...in my opinion. Care to get back onto the actual discussion now, instead of your adolescent fantasies about passive-aggressive punishment? (In my opinion.)

I do get that your "stalkiness" extends into a number of areas, including unsolicited PM and public attacks, despite not infrequent disavowals of me - one per season, I think is the trend, with some blips here and there. Yet you keep coming back. Perhaps someone has a secret, if freakish crush...in my opinion.

Hehe. You are perhaps familiar, if only in passing from watching Sesame Street (in my opinion) of the concept of NIMBY or hypocrisy? Don't strain yourself rubbing those two brain cells together.

In my opinion.

 

How do you know the pictures were of her?

How do you know SAM is a her?

(I thought she said she was a robot of some sort)

 

Bells when you say there is a push against breast feeding in public are you talking Australia or other countries and if Australia do you mean selected red necks (Jones, Bolt ect), public at large, media or government. The reason I ask is that I was under the impression that most of our states either had or were moving to specifically listing breast feeding as a protected act and class, currently i belive its concidered to be a part of the anti discrimination against women and the anti discrimination against parents legislation but I thought it was becoming its own set of legislation to further make apsolutly clear that a child has a right to eat (after all, its not a women's rights issue or a gender issue, its a rights of the child issue, just as we all have a right to eat even in public so does a child)

 

“Indeed, nude protests have many advantages. They don't cost anything, and they have enormous symbolic power. The protestor does nothing more than pose naked in bed, on a lawn or in a public place. The authorities, however, have to use force or bureaucratic power to stop them. It is never the naked protestor who appears ridiculous -- no matter what shape their body is in -- but the oppressive authorities. A system that has to mobilize men in uniform to stop someone from posing in their birthday suit has a problem. Nude protests allow those in a position of weakness to show strength. And who doesn't root for the underdog?”

Around the World, Protesters Bare All for a Cause

Virginity Tests for Egyptian Women Protesters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudity_and_protest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_non-sexual_social_nudity