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May. 7th, 2011 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
floatingleafI went to see my chiropractor today. It used to take me about 20 minutes by car to get there. By public transportation, it's a 20-minute commute (with a transfer) PLUS a 30-minute walk. One way, of course. YEEEAH. You bet I can feel every muscle in my legs right now (after that, I STILL had to get my groceries).:P But the doctor said I "moved nicely" when she did her customary adjustment. She also said I looked happy. Well... significant reduction of money-related stress tends to have that effect, I suppose.;)
But the real reason for this post is the movie I watched last night. The Stoning of Soraya M. I can't remember the last time I was so shaken by a film - literally, I just fell apart at one point and simply sat there shaking, choked with tears, completely unable to control myself. It was scary. But then, it is an unbelievably gruesome story. Gruesome, heartrending and perfectly true. It actually happened. Not in some dark, ancient times, either. In 1986, in Iran, a woman got stoned for "adultery", which she didn't even commit - the real reason for the conviction was the fact that her husband wanted to get rid of her, so he could marry a younger girl (a 14-year-old, in fact, I might add). Of course, according to Islamic law, he could have two (or more) wives - but the problem was, he would have to support them both, as well as any children they might have by him. Which wasn't so much to his liking. So he suggested divorce, which his wife refused - not because she wanted to stay with him, since he was an abusive jerk, but because that would leave her with no means to provide for her two young daughters (there were also two sons, but those the husband wanted to take with him - predictably, like a classic patriarchal man, he was only interested in the sons). So the husband came up with another way to conveniently take her out of the picture. He fabricated a rumor that she was having an affair with an elderly widower that she worked for, helping him with domestic chores and taking care of his mentally retarded son. Again, she only took the job to save up some money before she agreed to the divorce - but the husband couldn't wait. He found "witnesses" to coroborate his tale (blackmailing the village mullah, whose shady criminal past he was familiar with, into going along with the plan) - and before anyone could blink, the innocent woman was sentenced to death. By stoning. The only person who took Soraya's side was her aunt, Zahra - but there wasn't much she could do against the entire village (though, in the end, she actually did quite a lot, namely told the story to a French-Iranian journalist who happened to be passing through the area; which is how the book - and then the film - came into being). The stoning scene in the movie is very realistic, btw - it gives full justice to the utter bestiality of this ancient form of "punishment". The most shocking part, for me? Young boys, gathering stones for the execution; and then watching it like some sort of crude village entertainment. And yes, the husband brings in the two sons to take part in the proceedings (though the daughters are mercifully kept away and do not have to watch). And yes, they do throw stones at their mother. The younger one, somewhere around 8 years old, looks dubious, scared and tearful, but he takes a cue from his older brother (around 15) and does what is expected of him, therefore ensuring his proper place in the patriarchal world (the earlier he learns how women are to be treated, the more successful abuser he will become when he grows up, right?). Interestingly, it is the older boy - seemingly unmoved at first - who is later shown broken down, crying. Apparently the macho facade his lovely daddy put on him didn't last long, after all. Maybe he did learn a lesson from looking at his mother's mangled, bloody corpse - though not exactly the kind of lesson his father was trying to teach. But we don't really know. The movie doesn't tell us what happened afterwards. Apparently, most village residents calmly returned to their daily lives. Right after stoning a neighbor to death, because her husband claimed that she cheated on him. I mean, even if she did, for heaven's sake, even if they all saw undeniable proof in bright technicolor - how does that make anyone willing to kill a person that never harmed them in any way?... Even if she had been the meanest, most spiteful neighbor you could imagine - which she wasn't - how does that make it acceptable?... Are we humans that monstrous somewhere deep down, or is it just fear?... Blind fear that if you do not follow the herd, the next time it will turn against you?...
And all it took was one man's egotism and cruelty, elevated and sanctified by the society that raised him. Who knows, maybe his own father taught him an early lesson too, and he learned it well. It takes generations to establish that kind of mindset, and generations to break it down. To think all those people - the real people portrayed by actors in the movie - are most likely still alive today, getting on with their daily chores, as if nothing ever happened... It's chilling to the bone. And yet, the most intense emotion I felt during the film was a white-hot, blinding rage. A rage I didn't know I was capable of feeling. I was literally shaking with it, and I wanted to DESTROY the entire bunch of self-righteous, narcissistic pricks who use religion to justify keeping women on their knees. Yes, a woman cheating on her husband (who beats and rapes her, btw) is an offense against God - but a man plotting her death so he could marry a child is a godly citizen. Well, fuck your God. He is nothing but your own bloated reflection in a cloudy mirror. There is nothing, absolutely nothing "spiritual" about him at all.
Make no mistake - I do not think for a second that the most rabid Christian fundies are any better. I think some of them would be extremely happy to reinstate the practice of stoning, just because it was mentioned in the Bible. I do not buy into the whole "good Christians, evil Muslims" rhetoric that seems to be so terribly popular in the US these days (I don't suppose anyone reading this journal assumes I do, but I want to make it very clear just in case). All patriarchal religions have one basic purpose - and that is to reinforce the status quo. Real spirituality does not assign gender-specific roles to people. The spirit has no gender. You can be spiritual within any religion - or outside of it - but that doesn't require you to bow down to anyone. Because even if you do, you might still end up as a bloody, mangled corpse for your "sins". Just because the monster who owns you got bored with your abused flesh and wants some fresh meat. Hallelujah. Allah akbar. It's all the same. I mean no disrespect for people who were raised in a particular religion and can't completely let go of it, no matter what - but at least have the decency to see through the abusive potential... use your brain and heart and be a little selective about what you believe. Surely any honest, relatively intelligent person can do that?... Right?... Otherwise, we the highly-civilized and super-enlightened human race will keep throwing stones at each other until the end of time. Who needs hell?... It is right here, and it hasn't cooled down in the past few thousand years...
But the real reason for this post is the movie I watched last night. The Stoning of Soraya M. I can't remember the last time I was so shaken by a film - literally, I just fell apart at one point and simply sat there shaking, choked with tears, completely unable to control myself. It was scary. But then, it is an unbelievably gruesome story. Gruesome, heartrending and perfectly true. It actually happened. Not in some dark, ancient times, either. In 1986, in Iran, a woman got stoned for "adultery", which she didn't even commit - the real reason for the conviction was the fact that her husband wanted to get rid of her, so he could marry a younger girl (a 14-year-old, in fact, I might add). Of course, according to Islamic law, he could have two (or more) wives - but the problem was, he would have to support them both, as well as any children they might have by him. Which wasn't so much to his liking. So he suggested divorce, which his wife refused - not because she wanted to stay with him, since he was an abusive jerk, but because that would leave her with no means to provide for her two young daughters (there were also two sons, but those the husband wanted to take with him - predictably, like a classic patriarchal man, he was only interested in the sons). So the husband came up with another way to conveniently take her out of the picture. He fabricated a rumor that she was having an affair with an elderly widower that she worked for, helping him with domestic chores and taking care of his mentally retarded son. Again, she only took the job to save up some money before she agreed to the divorce - but the husband couldn't wait. He found "witnesses" to coroborate his tale (blackmailing the village mullah, whose shady criminal past he was familiar with, into going along with the plan) - and before anyone could blink, the innocent woman was sentenced to death. By stoning. The only person who took Soraya's side was her aunt, Zahra - but there wasn't much she could do against the entire village (though, in the end, she actually did quite a lot, namely told the story to a French-Iranian journalist who happened to be passing through the area; which is how the book - and then the film - came into being). The stoning scene in the movie is very realistic, btw - it gives full justice to the utter bestiality of this ancient form of "punishment". The most shocking part, for me? Young boys, gathering stones for the execution; and then watching it like some sort of crude village entertainment. And yes, the husband brings in the two sons to take part in the proceedings (though the daughters are mercifully kept away and do not have to watch). And yes, they do throw stones at their mother. The younger one, somewhere around 8 years old, looks dubious, scared and tearful, but he takes a cue from his older brother (around 15) and does what is expected of him, therefore ensuring his proper place in the patriarchal world (the earlier he learns how women are to be treated, the more successful abuser he will become when he grows up, right?). Interestingly, it is the older boy - seemingly unmoved at first - who is later shown broken down, crying. Apparently the macho facade his lovely daddy put on him didn't last long, after all. Maybe he did learn a lesson from looking at his mother's mangled, bloody corpse - though not exactly the kind of lesson his father was trying to teach. But we don't really know. The movie doesn't tell us what happened afterwards. Apparently, most village residents calmly returned to their daily lives. Right after stoning a neighbor to death, because her husband claimed that she cheated on him. I mean, even if she did, for heaven's sake, even if they all saw undeniable proof in bright technicolor - how does that make anyone willing to kill a person that never harmed them in any way?... Even if she had been the meanest, most spiteful neighbor you could imagine - which she wasn't - how does that make it acceptable?... Are we humans that monstrous somewhere deep down, or is it just fear?... Blind fear that if you do not follow the herd, the next time it will turn against you?...
And all it took was one man's egotism and cruelty, elevated and sanctified by the society that raised him. Who knows, maybe his own father taught him an early lesson too, and he learned it well. It takes generations to establish that kind of mindset, and generations to break it down. To think all those people - the real people portrayed by actors in the movie - are most likely still alive today, getting on with their daily chores, as if nothing ever happened... It's chilling to the bone. And yet, the most intense emotion I felt during the film was a white-hot, blinding rage. A rage I didn't know I was capable of feeling. I was literally shaking with it, and I wanted to DESTROY the entire bunch of self-righteous, narcissistic pricks who use religion to justify keeping women on their knees. Yes, a woman cheating on her husband (who beats and rapes her, btw) is an offense against God - but a man plotting her death so he could marry a child is a godly citizen. Well, fuck your God. He is nothing but your own bloated reflection in a cloudy mirror. There is nothing, absolutely nothing "spiritual" about him at all.
Make no mistake - I do not think for a second that the most rabid Christian fundies are any better. I think some of them would be extremely happy to reinstate the practice of stoning, just because it was mentioned in the Bible. I do not buy into the whole "good Christians, evil Muslims" rhetoric that seems to be so terribly popular in the US these days (I don't suppose anyone reading this journal assumes I do, but I want to make it very clear just in case). All patriarchal religions have one basic purpose - and that is to reinforce the status quo. Real spirituality does not assign gender-specific roles to people. The spirit has no gender. You can be spiritual within any religion - or outside of it - but that doesn't require you to bow down to anyone. Because even if you do, you might still end up as a bloody, mangled corpse for your "sins". Just because the monster who owns you got bored with your abused flesh and wants some fresh meat. Hallelujah. Allah akbar. It's all the same. I mean no disrespect for people who were raised in a particular religion and can't completely let go of it, no matter what - but at least have the decency to see through the abusive potential... use your brain and heart and be a little selective about what you believe. Surely any honest, relatively intelligent person can do that?... Right?... Otherwise, we the highly-civilized and super-enlightened human race will keep throwing stones at each other until the end of time. Who needs hell?... It is right here, and it hasn't cooled down in the past few thousand years...
