Tag / Social Justice

by Fadi Zaghmout

Joker – a wake up call for social justice


The Joker is in the back of my head as I come today to office. I greet the security guard and the office boy with a smile, and with a part of me that feels sad, reflecting on the emotions of Joaquin Phoenix who knew exactly how to portray the feelings of someone enduring social injustice.


That’s the core message of this strong film. Social injustice that we grew to accept as a natural state of life, embracing the status quo and brushing off the harsh reality of the lives of many people living with us.


And while, enduring the daily struggle of living at the bottom of the social ladder, or the invisible side of it, is a valid reason for someone to develop contempt towards this society, the Joker has been lucky to combine that with a history of abuse and mental illness. A formula that built a character we grew to love and admire at the end.


The film doesn’t glorify villains as some critique claims. In the contrary, it raises an alarm. It is a strong wake up call. It is a call for every single one of us to pay more attention, to be nicer and look beyond our own needs and vanity. The Joker, hasn’t been a villain in this film, not to me, and not even towards the end when his character develops into enjoying killing other people. And to be honest, the minute he shots the first person is a turning point in the film. Not because he pulls the trigger, but the effect of it on him. The empowering look on his face, the liberating feeling and the healing from the psychological pain he endured for so long.


It is not right. I know. But I accept it because it is a film. There is a part of me that can’t handle the sight of psychological struggle of other people. I wish to help and I know that I fall short in many times. But that same part, played on by the film makers, made me cheer to the Joker as he took those lives. Yes, smile. I wanted to see him smiling and clapped when he did. Yes, dance. I loved how he danced and wanted to dance with him.


Be happy. I wanted to see him happy but that didn’t happen. And that is unreasonable to expect at the point he reached. He is broken beyond repair and his actions are no longer to seek justice or take revenge, but more of becoming mad to fit into the craziness of the world he found himself in.
And here, I can’t ignore the connection my mind made between the Joker and Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on 17 December 2010, triggering the Tunisian revolution and the Arab Spring. One might find this film dark and heavy, but looking at our reality and the state of the region since Bouazizi burnt himself, shows us clearly that more than often, reality is darker than fiction.

by Fadi Zaghmout

Men empowerment!


SEVEN

It was an honor taking part of SEVEN yesterday, an international play that highlights that stories of seven women activists around the world. During the reading, I came across this story of a Nigerian woman whose family wanted to marry her off to an old Saudi man and whom escaped before her wedding dishonouring her family. The script goes on to describe how this Nigerian woman wanted to reconcile with her family and how after two years she seized the chance of a holy day and went back, apologising for her father, who welcomed her back into the family with open arms.

That is when it hit me how similar this story to the ending of Rana’s story in Aroos Amman. How Rana’s father forgave her after two years of her escaping the country and stood up for her against his family and social mandates.

Many have claimed that the ending of Rana’s story in the book is far fetched, they claimed that such fathers’ reaction doesn’t exist. In reality, I believe that it exists more often than we realize. Both of those stories are a reflection of real stories. Those men, who we fail to highlight their courageous stand in championing the love of their daughters and their freedom of choice against strong social values, are real. Men are not strong as we believe they are. We tend to tie manhood with strength and then translate that into giving men the role of imposing inherited social values that hurt our beloved ones. Men flexes their muscles to apply the social laws that they can’t stand up to. That’s not a real strength for me, that is not noble, and not manly. Real strength is standing up for the ones you love, respect their freedom of choice, and protect it.

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by Fadi Zaghmout

Between Tunis’s Bouazizi and Egypt’s Magda Alia Al Madhi a portray of a cultural intake on life and death


When a man protested social injustice with a suicidal move of burning his own body, he triggered a whole revolution that broke the boundaries of his own country to hit many other Arab countries. He was crowned as a hero, idolized a copied many other times!

Now comes a woman who protests social injustice by posting a nude pictures for herself on her own blog. She triggers much press and chat around her action. She gets attacked severely by the religious groups in her country and disowned by the so-called-liberal ones. She is faced with jail and death threats and depicted as a shallow stupid unstable person and even a devil!

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by Fadi Zaghmout

Jordan’s Tribal Heritage Shouldn’t Justify Death Sentence


Last week Batir Wardam, a Jordanian famous writer, blogger and human rights activist, published a post on his blog about death sentence in Jordan. What he said mainly is that he is a strong supporter for the international declaration of human rights and the associated covenants with it except for one thing he doesn’t completely agree with, which is the call to abolish death sentence absolutely.

Batir goes on in his article and try to justify his stand by pointing out Jordan’s specific cultural heritage of tribal laws where tribes are known of taking justice by their hands and kill the murderer – or any member of his family – in order to take revenge. He claims that if the law can give the victim its right by sentencing the murderer to death, then tribes don’t have to enforce their own version of justice.

I, personally, have a deep respect for Batir, and I do usually agree with most of his ideas and stands, but I found myself completely against the notion that he presents. I didn’t intend to write about this subject back when I read his post, but today I was reading July’s issues of Living Well magazine which features a comprehensive report addressing death sentence in Jordan, and was surprised to read that the same notion has been talked out by a Jordanian famous lawyer.

It seems that there is some pushing towards abolishing death sentence in Jordan (no death sentence applied since 2006), but it also seems that there is some pushing against it. Building a case on the particularity of the local social structure and heritage is a quite common approach that has historically been used in different occasions to fight the pressures of the global community to push human rights amendments in the country.

While it is true that tribes tend to take revenge, I don’t think that it justifies keeping the death sentence penalty. You don’t fix a mistake with another one. If we have a problem with our social heritage then we should come up with laws that enforce fixing the problem instead of building on it and violate human rights recommendations. If a member of a family murdered someone in retaliation of a murdered happened in his family, then an investigation should take place in order to find out who in his family supported and helped him to take his revenge. In the eyes of the law, associates and supporters of a crime are criminals as well and should be punished. That is what should be enforced in order to stop tribes from applying the law by their hands instead of supporting death sentence with all what it entails of violations of human rights recommendations.