NEWSRACISM AND DISCRIMINATION

For nearly two years, my fellow activists and I have been urging the White House that it must do more to prevent the outbreak of another war in Sudan. Now it seems the administration has listened.

President Obama was the first head of state to commit to attending last month’s special UN session concerning the referendum on independence for Southern Sudan. This vote - fewer than 90 days away - is prescribed in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, which ended more than 20 years of civil war. If Sudan is serious about peace, it must not only permit the referendum in an atmosphere free of violence, but must accept the will of the people should they choose independence. A vote for secession will also require that Khartoum works cooperatively with the government of Southern Sudan to resolve all issues regarding borders and oil revenues.

Nairobi, Kenya - One wouldn’t think that a 22-year-old Central African insurgency, notorious for mutilations, child abductions and sexual slavery, would make good fodder for comedy.

But Jane Bussmann's book The Worst Date Ever, featuring a cover photo of a scantily-clad dyed-blond, gives a refreshing new spin on Africa’s longest-running war and some of the factors that perpetuate it.

Bussmann’s quest to join the ranks of what she calls 'The Useful People' began when she left the world of celebrity journalism in Hollywood to Uganda, first as a teacher then as an aspiring foreign correspondent.

She would frequent the Acholi Inn, the nicest hotel in northern Uganda, for interviews.

“Apparently you had to work for a charity to afford to stay there,” she tells a Nairobi audience here for a comedy show rendition of her book. The Acholi, she says, was “full of Westerners come to save the children."

You thought you’d listened to them all – the stories, the witnesses, the gruesome accounts. But just when you thought they were over, they pop up once more, reminding us that in conflict zones, women still get the lower end of the deal.

A new study by the International AIDS Society explores the effects of mass rape on HIV in conflict situations. As one might expect, the study found that women and girls suffer extensively in war-ridden zones and face a major risk of contracting HIV and passing it on to their communities.

The study found that in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, Somalia and Sierra Leone, mass rapes could cause five new HIV infections per 100,000 women or girls each year. The number is even higher in Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. The study also revealed that survivors of rape might spread the disease to their partners or their offspring due to the lack of knowledge or proper post-rape care.

It wasn’t a secret. And AIDS activists have long boasted its benefits. The prevention of HIV requires decriminalization of homosexuality in all countries. Now Cuba, a country with deep-rooted, institutionalized homophobia, might be leading the way in social inclusion and HIV prevention too.

The organization that may be responsible for such accomplishments celebrates 10 years of educating and empowering men in Cuba. It bears the patently obvious Men Who Have Sex With Men (MSM) name and just as straightforwardly has battled ignorance since early 2000.

Co-founder Raúl Reguerio told IPS News that MSM’s goal is to strengthen gay and bisexual men through research and education. The organization relies on peer education to promote safe sex and now claims 1,700 volunteers in 14 provinces scattered on the Caribbean island.

But these landmarks didn't happen overnight for these rabblerousers.

Recently, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof pushed the boundaries of our national conversation by daring to suggest that not all Muslims think and act alike.  He’s worth quoting at length:

“Many Americans honestly believe that Muslims are prone to violence, but humans are too complicated and diverse to lump into groups that we form invidious conclusions about. We’ve mostly learned that about blacks, Jews and other groups that suffered historic discrimination, but it’s still O.K. to make sweeping statements about 'Muslims' as an undifferentiated mass…. Muslims are one of the last minorities in the United States that it is still possible to demean openly, and I apologize for the slurs."

Kristof is right to call out the American public, and the American media, for its monolithic portrayal of Muslims and Arabs.  So monolithic is that image, in fact, that this simple and really not all that surprising fact bears repeating:  Not all Arabs are Muslims, and the majority of American Muslims are not Arab.

Finding stories that treat Muslims and Arabs as people, rather than objects, can be a tall order in the current media market.  I suggest starting with author Alia Malek’s book, A Country Called Amreeka, which uses profiles to tell a hundred years’ of history of Arabs in America, or The Mosque in Morgantown, a documentary about one woman’s challenge to her West Virginia community's narrow interpretation of Islam.