YCLOAK

An Australian-led study warns that 1,500 of the world’s 7,000 recognized languages might no longer be spoken by the end of this century.

The research, published Friday in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, details a wide range of factors putting endangered languages under pressure.

Australian researchers have found that as roads increasingly connect cities to more remote areas around the world, Indigenous languages can be overwhelmed by their more dominant counterparts, such as English.

The study also asserts that bilingual education has been neglected. Again, dominant languages have been found to smother those spoken by smaller groups.

Experts have said Australia’s record is poor, and the country has one of world’s highest rates of language loss worldwide.

Before European colonization, more than 250 First Nations languages were spoken in Australia. Today, there are just 40, and only a dozen are being taught to children.

“This has been an on-going process through colonization and globalization,” said the University of Queensland’s professor Felicity Meakins, one of the study’s co-authors. “So, we do not want to forget, of course, in all of this that individual speech communities have their own histories and experiences, and in many places, including Australia, languages have been silenced as the result of brutal colonial policies, which have been designed to suppress languages. So, for instance, in Australia people were punished for speaking their language and these experiences were really traumatic and have had lasting consequences for the ability of language communities to pass on their languages.”

Researchers have said that as the world prepares for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, Decade of Indigenous Language in 2022, their findings were a “vital reminder” that more action is needed to save at-risk languages.

They have said that every language is “brilliant in its own way” and a critical part of “our human cultural diversity.” 

 

 
…

Multiple Grammy winner Bruce Springsteen has sold his masters and music publishing rights to Sony Music in a deal worth about $500 million, entertainment publication Billboard said Wednesday, citing sources. 

The sale will give Sony ownership of the rock music legend’s entire catalog, including 15-times platinum album “Born in the U.S.A” and five-times platinum “The River,” Billboard reported. 

It is the latest in a string of catalog deals over the past year or so that includes the music of David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Stevie Nicks, Neil Young and Carole Bayer Sager. 

Warner Music bought worldwide rights to Bowie’s catalog in September, and Dylan sold his back catalog of more than 600 songs in December last year to Universal Music Group at a purchase price widely reported as $300 million. 

Sony’s Columbia Records, where Springsteen recorded his music, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Representatives for Springsteen could not be reached. 

 
…

Chinese authorities are pledging unrestricted internet access for foreign athletes at February’s Beijing Winter Olympics, but rights advocates say athletes will likely be cautious about exploiting the rare crack in China’s “Great Firewall.”

China has been strengthening that firewall for more than a decade, blocking access to internationally popular foreign messaging apps, social media platforms, search engines and websites deemed threatening to national security.

In a statement emailed to VOA, the International Olympic Committee confirmed that China, as host of the 2022 Beijing Games, will honor a promise to allow athletes and accredited foreign media to have open internet service in the Olympic Village, competition and noncompetition venues, and contracted media hotels.

“Accredited participants will be able to access open internet service with their own devices via wired or Wi-Fi OTN (optical transport network) connection … when purchasing Games SIM cards via the Beijing 2022 Rate Card program,” the IOC said.

China has unblocked its Great Firewall for certain foreign visitors in certain venues on several occasions in the past decade.

While working for another network, a VOA Mandarin Service journalist who was reporting from Hangzhou, China, for the 2016 Group of 20 summit and from Beijing for the 2017 Belt and Road summit observed that Chinese authorities provided unrestricted Wi-Fi access at both venues to accredited foreign journalists.  

Angeli Datt, senior China researcher at Washington-based human rights group Freedom House, told VOA that the Great Firewall was also unblocked for visitors participating in the 2015 World Athletics Championships, held at the same Beijing stadium that had hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics.

During the 2008 Games, China’s Great Firewall was much smaller, blocking foreign websites containing political content that Beijing deemed sensitive while allowing access to U.S. web portals Google and Yahoo, video-sharing site YouTube, and social media platforms Facebook and Twitter. In subsequent years, however, Chinese authorities proceeded to block all those web services plus Instagram, which was launched in 2010.

Datt emphasized the limited nature of China’s pledge to make another one-off opening of its enlarged Great Firewall.

“The vast majority of likely Olympics spectators — Chinese nationals — will not have access to the free and open internet, and thus the IOC failed to use its leverage to make the Olympics a force for good for the people of China,” she said.

Athletes’ expression 

As for foreign athletes, they will be allowed to use China’s unrestricted internet service to express their views through digital and social media channels, under the IOC’s Rule 50 Guidelines, which govern athletes’ expression. But their online expression will be subject to the same IOC limits as for previous Games and will include requirements to respect “applicable laws” of the host nation and Olympic values prohibiting expression that “constitutes or signals discrimination, hatred, hostility or the potential for violence on any basis.”

Some international athletes have already used the unrestricted Chinese Wi-Fi service at several test events held in October and November at Beijing Winter Olympics venues. American bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor, who competed at the Beijing bobsled time trials in late October, told VOA that her team used the Wi-Fi service to access WhatsApp, a messaging app that is owned by Meta (formerly Facebook) and that China has blocked since 2017.

Meyers Taylor said team coaches stationed at different points along the bobsled track recorded videos of athletes’ runs and shared them via WhatsApp as a way of providing feedback to the athletes. “The Wi-Fi worked great, and the coaches were able to send us our videos, the same as we usually do,” she said, speaking from a competition in Winterberg, Germany, last week. 

Some athletes at the test events did not use the Chinese Wi-Fi service. Swiss ski crosser Alex Fiva, who competed in the Ski Cross World Cup in Beijing last month, told VOA he had not been informed that such a service would be available, so he installed a virtual private network app on his phone to connect to WhatsApp and Instagram through a server outside of China’s Great Firewall.

Fiva, who was speaking last week from a competition in Val Thorens, France, said his VPN app worked smoothly in China. He said he used it to post an Instagram video of his practice run on a slope at the Genting Resort Secret Garden.

Other athletes may have a tougher time using VPNs during February’s Games. Datt of Freedom House said China has increasingly cracked down on VPN usage and providers in the country since 2017, when, she said, it banned certain hotels from offering VPNs to foreign visitors.

Datt said athletes who decide to use the unrestricted Chinese Wi-Fi service will be taking a risk. “Being forced to use the networks provided by the Chinese organizers leaves the visitors susceptible to surveillance,” she said.

Sophisticated digital surveillance 

The Chinese government runs one of the world’s most sophisticated digital surveillance networks, using its own technologies and those of private Chinese companies to monitor and censor the flow of information and opinion among its more than 1 billion citizens.

That surveillance extends to foreigners. The Reuters news agency reported last month that authorities in China’s third most populous province, Henan, awarded a contract to a Chinese tech company in September to build a surveillance system specifically targeting foreign journalists and students.

Visiting athletes who expect to be surveilled while using the Beijing Games’ unrestricted Wi-Fi service may also censor themselves: Quinn McKew, executive director of London-based rights group Article 19, told VOA that the athletes may refrain from posting any criticisms of China and its poor human rights record to avoid subjecting themselves and their corporate sponsors to Chinese wrath. 

“A lot of top athletes are sponsored by U.S. brands that sponsor the Games as well, and those companies are incredibly concerned about maintaining their access to the Chinese market,” McKew said. “They are concerned because of the aggressive moves that the Chinese have made when they feel that their national narrative is threatened by foreign individuals.”

The general manager of the U.S. NBA team Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, triggered Beijing’s wrath in October 2019 when he posted a tweet supporting Hong Kong pro-democracy activists who were protesting the Chinese government’s efforts to curb the city’s freedoms. Chinese state-run network CCTV retaliated immediately by dropping regular season NBA games from its programming, and it has not resumed the broadcasts. U.S. sports news network ESPN estimated in September 2020 that the NBA had lost $200 million in the China market as a result.

Bobsledder Meyers Taylor said she expects athletes in Beijing to self-censor, but for other reasons, such as wanting to focus on their performance at a time when the Winter Olympics give their sporting disciplines much greater international visibility than usual.

“I would always expect there to be some self-censorship, because you want people to associate you with positivity and attract sponsors and donors for the next four years,” she said.

Ski crosser Fiva said any Chinese digital surveillance of visiting athletes will not stop him from going online again in Beijing if he qualifies for the Games.

“You kind of know that they’re watching you and probably listening to you,” he said. “But my thinking is, if I don’t have to hide something, I don’t care if they read it, you know?” 

Australian Olympic Committee CEO Matt Carroll, speaking to VOA from Sydney, said his organization urged athletes seeking to qualify for the Games to avoid pre-competition distractions that could put them under additional pressure while in Beijing.

“But if they want to tweet something, after competing, about human rights, whether it’s about (China’s treatment of ethnic minority) Uyghurs or whatever, they are free to do so,” he said. “And the Chinese authorities — they have to live with that.”

VOA Mandarin Service reporter Bo Gu contributed. Some information was provided by Reuters. 

 
…

Yarnbombing is part street art, part graffiti, and part activism. A new art trend in New York City takes the age-old craft of crocheting to the streets, where traditionally walls and fences have been serving as canvases for graffiti artists. Nina Vishneva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
…

A family who went to court to ensure a quarter of the classes for their five-year-old son at a primary school are taught in Spanish were offered police protection Wednesday after they said they were harassed and abused. 

The family, residents of Canet de Mar, a Mediterranean coastal town 50 kilometers northeast of Barcelona, won their case at the Catalan High Court last week.

The case has spotlighted a bitter battle in Spain over languages and identity politics not just in Catalonia but in the Basque Country, Galicia, and the Balearic Islands.

Spain has four official languages: Castilian Spanish, Catalan, Galician and Basque. Officially they have equal status in law. However, Castilian emerged as the dominant language because of widespread use of the language across the empire from 1492 until 1976. One of the largest empires in the world, it covered large portions of the Americas, Europe, the Philippines and Africa.

During his rule from 1939 to 1975, General Francisco Franco banned the use of regional languages other than Castilian in schools and other public spaces. 

After democracy returned to Spain in 1978, the nationalist regional government in Catalonia adopted the so-called ‘linguistic immersion’ model to re-establish the language. Under this model, Catalan is the primary language in state schools. Other versions were implemented in the Basque Country and Galicia.

Angry reaction 

The actions of the family, whose identity has not been released to protect the child, prompted an angry reaction from Catalan nationalists and activists who claim their actions threaten the region’s language and culture.

Plataforma per la Lleguna Catalana, or Platform for the Catalan Language, a group that advocates for the Catalan language, condemned the court ruling in the Canet de Mar case. 

Oscar Escuder, the group’s president, said his organization did not oppose the teaching of Spanish in schools but wanted to defend the right to be taught Catalan well.

“We are not against any language. We just want people to be taught Catalan properly, not more than any other language,” he told VOA.

The organization pointed to a recent poll that found 82% of the 7.5 million residents of Catalonia surveyed support the linguistic immersion model. 

Josep González-Cambray, education minister for the pro-independence Catalan government, condemned threats to the family but told a press conference last week: “The Catalan school model is a model of success which guarantees us social cohesion, equity and equal opportunities.”

Vox, a far-right party, led a demonstration Tuesday in Barcelona demanding families have the right to speak Spanish while other right-wing political parties have seized on the issue.

 

Language is a potent political issue as Spain’s minority left-wing government depends on the support of nationalist parties in Catalonia and the Basque Country to pass laws.

Gloria Lagos, president of Hablamos Español, or We Speak Spanish, a group that promotes Spanish, said the issue of linguistic politics was not confined to Catalonia.

Other regions 

Maria Luisa Sánchez González, 44, went to court in San Sebastián, in the Basque Country, to fight for the right for her nine-year-old son to be taught in Spanish. She says all the classes were in Basque. 

She originally asked for him to be taught partly in Spanish at primary school but was told this was not available.

Sánchez says after suffering threats and abuse, she and her husband were victorious when a court ruled the Basque educational authorities failed to uphold her rights under the Spanish Constitution. Her son now goes to a school where 30% of classes are taught in Spanish — at a cost of $565 per month to regional authorities.

Ten years after the Basque separatist organization ETA declared a permanent cease-fire stopping a bloody 40-year conflict, sensibilities about the region’s language remain high.

“People in Catalonia are afraid to speak out about this, but they are more scared here in the Basque Country because only ten years ago if you said anything against the Basque language you got two shots in the head,” Sánchez told VOA. 

Paul Bilbao, of the Council of Social Entities in the Basque Country, which promotes Basque, told VOA that he would like to see a “total immersion model” in the region like Catalan model.

“That way we could ensure that all children left school with a proper level of the Basque language,” he said.

In Galicia, in northwestern Spain, Rodrigo Villar Cerviño, 49, a businessman, is considering taking legal action so his two children, aged nine and six, can be taught in Spanish instead of Galician.

“The teacher in my son’s class does not allow him to express himself in his mother tongue- Spanish — something which is a right in the Constitution. I have nothing against Galician, but I think my children will learn better in their mother tongue,” he told VOA. 

When VOA sought a response from the Galician regional government, a spokesman denied that pupils were prohibited from speaking Spanish in any school.

On Wednesday, the Spanish government and the pro-independence Catalan Republic Left party agreed a deal to guarantee the 2022 budget is passed. Under the deal, Spain will pay $16.9 million every year to Netflix, HBO and other streaming platforms to make 15% of their content in Catalan and other regional languages.
…

Congolese rumba is among at least nine new entries on UNESCO’s “representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.”

UNESCO is making its 2021 designations this week, recognizing cultural heritage ranging from Arabic calligraphy to falconry to Nordic clinker boat traditions. 

Congolese rumba was named to the list Tuesday. The Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo jointly bid for UNESCO to recognize the music and dance, which helped energize people in those countries to shake off colonial rule by Belgium and France, respectively, in Congo, in 1960. 

UNESCO’s director general, Audrey Azoulay, summarized rumba’s significance. 

“In the 20th century, the Congolese rumba was a symbol for the fight for emancipation, dignity and political independence on the African continent,” she said in a statement shared with VOA. “Therefore, the inscription of this music is not just the recognition of a cultural practice but a historic decision. It underlines the political nature of this music, which inspires so many artists all around the world today.” 

Through its ongoing list, UNESCO aims to safeguard cultural practices and ensure that they’re handed down through generations. 

The list of new entries includes:

— Pasillo song and poetry from Ecuador.

— Pottery-related practices and knowledge of Peru’s Awajún people.

— Dances and other expression affiliated with Panama’s Corpus Christi festivities.

— Venezuela’s festive cycle around worship of St. John the Baptist. 

— Bolivia’s Grand Festival of Tarija. 
…

Movie dramas “The Power of the Dog” and “Belfast” led nominations on Monday for the annual Golden Globes in a year clouded by controversy and a scaled-down ceremony.

“Belfast,” set in 1970s Northern Ireland, and director Jane Campion’s Western “The Power of the Dog” got seven nods each. They were followed by global-warming satire “Don’t Look Up”; “King Richard,” about the father of tennis champions Venus and Serena Williams; director Steven Spielberg’s new version of the classic musical “West Side Story” and coming-of-age tale “Licorice Pizza” with four each. Netflix movies received a leading 17 nominations. The winners of the Golden Globes will be announced on Jan. 9, but the ceremony’s format is unclear after broadcaster NBC earlier this year dropped plans to televise the glitzy awards dinner in Beverly Hills following a controversy over the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the group that votes on them.

Monday’s nominations were met mostly with silence from movie studios and actors who normally flood social media and reporters with thanks and reactions.

It is unclear whether any of the nominees will attend the 2022 ceremony, which had been one of Hollywood’s biggest awards shows in the run-up to the Oscars.

Rapper and actor Snoop Dogg was the only celebrity on hand on Monday to announce the nominations.

Critics objected to the Foreign Press Association having no Black members, and raised longstanding ethical questions over whether close relationships with Hollywood studios influenced the choice of nominees and winners. Tom Cruise in May returned the three Golden Globe statuettes that he has won.

The HFPA has since added 21 new members, six of whom are Black; banned gifts and favors; and implemented diversity and sexual harassment training. The group now has 105 members total.

Despite these moves, major film and TV studios have tried to distance themselves from the Globes.

“Belfast,” “The Power of the Dog,” deaf community movie “Coda,” sci-fi epic “Dune” and “King Richard” all got nods for best movie drama.

A musical take on the classic “Cyrano” and an adaptation of the Off-Broadway hit “Tick, Tick… Boom” will compete with “Don’t Look Up,” “Licorice Pizza” and “West Side Story” for best musical or comedy.

Lady Gaga (“House of Gucci”), Nicole Kidman (“Being the Ricardos”), Will Smith (“King Richard”), Kristen Stewart (“Spencer”) and Denzel Washington (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”) were among the actors nominated for best drama movie performances.

In television, drama “Succession,” about a squabbling family media conglomerate, received a leading five nominations.

The HFPA said it had made its choices this year by watching films in movie theaters, at screenings and on streaming platforms in what it called “a fair and equitable voting process.”

“While the Golden Globes will not be televised in January 2022, we will continue our 78-year tradition,” it said in an open letter released ahead of Monday’s nominations. “The last eight months have been difficult, but we are proud of the changes we have achieved so far.”
…

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2021, a year that saw his electric car company become the most valuable carmaker in the world and his rocket company soar to the edge of space with an all-civilian crew.

Musk is also the founder and CEO of SpaceX, and leads brain-chip startup Neuralink and infrastructure firm The Boring Company. Tesla’s market value soared to more than $1 trillion this year, making it more valuable than Ford Motor and General Motors combined. 

Tesla produces hundreds of thousand of cars every year and has managed to avert supply chain issues better than many of its rivals, while pushing many young consumers to switch to electric cars and legacy automakers to shift focus to EV vehicles.

“For creating solutions to an existential crisis, for embodying the possibilities and the perils of the age of tech titans, for driving society’s most daring and disruptive transformations, Elon Musk is TIME’s 2021 Person of the Year,” the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Edward Felsenthal, said.

“Even Elon Musk’s spacefaring adventures are a direct line from the very first Person of the Year, Charles Lindbergh, whom the editors selected in 1927 to commemorate his historic first solo transatlantic airplane flight over the Atlantic.”

From hosting Saturday Night Live to dropping tweets on cryptocurrencies and meme stocks that have triggered massive movements in their value, Musk has dominated the headlines and amassed over 66 million followers on Twitter.

Some of his tweets have also attracted regulatory scrutiny in the past.

According to the magazine, “The Person of the Year” signifies somebody “who affected the news or our lives the most, for better, or worse.”

Time magazine named the teenage pop singer Olivia Rodrigo as its “Entertainer of the Year,” American gymnast Simone Biles “Athlete of the Year” and vaccine scientists were named “Heroes of the Year.”

Last year, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were jointly given the “Person of the Year” title. Time began this tradition in 1927. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have also received the title in the past.
…

Vicente Fernandez, an iconic and beloved singer of Mexican regional music who was awarded three Grammys and nine Latin Grammys, and inspired a new generation of performers, including his son Alejandro Fernandez, died on Sunday. He was 81 years old.

Fernandez was known for hits such as “El Rey,” and “Lastima que seas ajena,” his command of the ranchera genre and his dark and elegant mariachi suits with their matching wide-brimmed sombreros. 

His music attracted fans far beyond Mexico’s borders. Songs like “Volver, Volver” and “Como Mexico no hay dos” were extremely popular among Mexican immigrant communities in the U.S. because of how they expressed the longing for the homeland.

“It was an honor and a great pride to share with everyone a great musical career and give everything for the audience,” Fernandez’s family said on his official Instagram account. “Thank you for continuing to applaud, thank you for continuing to sing.” 

Fernandez, known also by his nickname “Chente,” died at 6:15 a.m. in a hospital in Jalisco state, his family said. Funeral plans were not immediately announced. In August, he had suffered a serious fall and had been hospitalized since then for that and other ailments.

Beginning early on Sunday, people began posting messages, many of them recalling the lyrics to one of the favorite mariachi requests at parties and restaurants that goes, “I am still the king.”

Music greats such as Gloria Estefan, Ricky Martin, Pitbull and Maluma took to social media to post heartfelt condolences, some citing how his music influenced them. Famous country singer George Strait said Fernandez was “one of my heroes.”

“I am broken hearted. Don Chente has been an angel to me all my life,” Ricky Martin said. “The only thing that gives me comfort at this moment is that every time we saw each other I told him how important he was to me.”

Mexico’s president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador also expressed his condolences, calling him “a symbol of the ranchera music.” 

Meanwhile, outside the hospital where he died, fans began arriving Sunday carrying photographs with the singer and belting out his best hits.

The timing of his death was also highlighted by fans as Fernandez often sang on Dec. 12 to mark the Catholic pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, an event that attracts vast crowds. The commemoration was being held on Sunday after it was canceled last year because of the pandemic. 

Vicente Fernandez Gomez was born on February 17, 1940 in the town of Huentitan El Alto in the western state of Jalisco. He spent most of his childhood on the ranch of his father, Ramon Fernandez, on the outskirts of the state capital, Guadalajara.

The artist sold more than 50 million records and appeared in more than 30 films. In 1998, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In April 2016, he said goodbye to the stage before about 85,000 people in Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. Spectators had traveled from northern Mexico as well as Colombia, other Latin American countries and the United States for the occasion.
…

Anne Rice, writer of the supernatural and the macabre, has died. She was 80.

Christopher Rice, her son, posted on Twitter early Sunday: “. . . my mother, Anne Rice, passed away due to complications resulting from a stroke. . . The immensity of our family’s grief cannot be overstated.”

Rice is best known for her Vampire Chronicles books, which included Interview With the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned. Interview With the Vampire became a movie in 1994, starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.

AMC Networks is set to premiere a series next year based on Interview with the Vampire. The company has acquired the rights to 18 of Rice’s books. The prolific author wrote over 30 books and had more than a million followers on Facebook, according to her website.

While Rice seemed to relish in the world of the undead, in the late 1990s, she rediscovered her Catholic faith, according to biography.com. That discovery prompted her to write Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Angel Time.

Rice was born in New Orleans and the city became the backdrop for many of her books.

Her son said in his Twitter post: “Next year, a celebration of her life will take place in New Orleans. This event will be open to the public and will invite the participation of her friends, readers and fans who brought her such joy and inspiration throughout her life.”

 
…

When the nuns of Maredret Abbey in Belgium were struggling to scrape together the funds for badly needed renovation works, they turned to an occupation that for hundreds of years had been the preserve of monks: beer-brewing.

The 20-strong Benedictine community, founded in 1893, decided about five years ago it was time to team up with a brewer with the aim of to producing beer infused with some of their history and values while helping repair their convent’s leaking roofs and cracked walls.

After nearly three years of collaboration with brewer and importer John Martin, Maredret Altus, a 6.8% amber beer using cloves and juniper berries, and Maredret Triplus, an 8% blond incorporating coriander and sage, went on sale in summer.

“It’s good for one’s health. It aids digestion. All the sisters like the beer, we are in Belgium after all,” said Sister Gertrude, adding the nuns allowed themselves one bottle each on Sundays.

 

The beers are based on spelt, a grain mentioned in texts by Saint Hildegard, a German Benedictine abbess from the 11th century who has inspired the Belgian order, along with plants commonly grown in the nuns’ garden.

Edward Martin, head distiller and great-grandson of the brewer’s founder, said production was currently 300,000 bottles per year, which would rise to around 3 million within a couple of years. Outside Belgium, it is already being sold in Italy and Spain.

Abbey beers, which involve a brewer paying royalties in exchange for using the abbey name, are common in Belgium, but until now they have only been with abbeys housing monks.

Maredret Abbey is just a kilometer from male counterpart Maredsous Abbey, whose beer, made by Duvel, is widely available.

Sister Gertrude stressed they did not see each other as rivals.

“They were aware, informed and they gave us the green light. It’s not a competition, more a complementarity,” she said.
…

Shortly after Kholoud al-Faqeeh was appointed judge in an Islamic religious court in the Palestinian territories, a woman walked in, laid eyes on her and turned around and walked out, murmuring that she didn’t want a woman to rule in her case.

Al-Faqeeh was saddened, but not surprised — people have long been accustomed to seeing turbaned men in her place. It was only in 2009 that she became one of the first two women appointed in the West Bank as Islamic religious court judges. But she sees her presence on the court as all the more important since it rules on personal status matters ranging from divorce and alimony to custody and inheritance.

“What was even more provoking is that these religious courts are in charge of women’s cases,” al-Faqeeh said. “A woman’s whole life cycle is before these courts.”

Women like al-Faqeeh are increasingly carving out space for themselves in the Islamic sphere, and in doing so, paving the way for others to follow in their footsteps. Around the world, women are teaching in Islamic schools and universities, leading Quran study circles, preaching and otherwise providing religious guidance to the faithful.

This story is part of a series by The Associated Press and Religion News Service on women’s roles in male-led religions.

The formal ranks of Islamic leadership remain largely filled with men, but while women don’t lead mixed-gender congregational prayers in traditional Muslim settings, many say they see plenty of other paths to leadership.

“When it comes to knowledge, the leader who is the religious scholar, the spiritual guide, the one who is teaching people their religion … that can be done by women or men, and historically always has been,” said Ingrid Mattson, the London and Windsor Community Chair in Islamic Studies at Huron University College in London, Ontario.

There are diverse views across the different regions, cultures and schools of Islamic thought about the permissibility and scope of women’s leadership roles in the faith.

Some of the Prophet Muhammad’s traditions and practices were preserved and transmitted by the women closest to him, such as his wives. Many women say that provides a foundation they seek to build on.

Mattson said that people always ask whether a woman can be an imam, but that framing reflects a Western context focused on the weekly congregational prayer rather than “what our Islamic heritage did in terms of providing religious leadership across society to meet many different needs.”

In Morocco

Aziza Moufid, a 40-year-old in Morocco, is one of those who have taken up the mantle of leadership within the faith, in her case by serving as one of the country’s “mourchidat,” or female religious guides.

The “mourchidat” are trained at an institute for male and female students founded by and named after Moroccan King Mohammed VI. Female graduates teach religion classes and answer women’s questions at mosques or during outreach work in schools, hospitals and prisons.

Moufid, who recalls looking up to the female university professors who taught her Islamic studies, has been working as a guide mostly via WhatsApp during the pandemic. She uses the platform to explain sayings of the prophet to children; to help women learning to memorize and recite the Quran; and to counsel teenage girls about a variety of topics from modesty to prayers to menstruation.

“There are sensitive issues that some of them may not dare discuss even with their mothers or sisters,” Moufid said. “But there’s no such shame between us. I tell them, ‘I am your sister. I am your friend. I am your mother.'”

Mohammed VI institute director Abdesselam Lazaar, a man, said the services of the “mourchidat” have been in high demand. 

“The women here in Morocco are very keen on memorizing the Quran and learning about religion.”

In the US

Half a world away in the United States, Samia Omar, who became Harvard University’s first Muslim woman chaplain in 2019, said female students there similarly appreciate being able to bring questions about things like menstruation to her instead of to a man.

Omar also sees herself as saving them from being taught a version of Islam devoid of discussion of their rights.

“I’m serving and teaching these young girls and women the way I hope other women will help teach my daughters later,” she said.

Omar didn’t always plan to become a religious leader. But the twists and turns of her life, including an abusive marriage, a divorce and losing a daughter to cancer, led her to the calling she now practices alongside her current husband, who also serves as a Muslim chaplain.

During the divorce, some at her mosque tried to dissuade her from turning to the legal system. She ignored that pressure and ultimately won full custody of her kids, but the experience left Omar feeling that some men exploit the religion to oppress women.

That can have grave spiritual consequences, Omar said. “Many young women don’t understand that we’re important in Allah’s eyes.”

Many in the U.S. have advocated for a larger role for women in mosques, from better prayer spaces for female worshippers to more seats on governing boards and a more friendly mosque culture. Some are also calling for a more decentralized leadership model at mosques, one that includes a paid female resident scholar in addition to a male imam.

While there is hope for such advances, “things are not great for women in leadership … in our sacred spaces,” right now, said Tamara Gray of Rabata, a nonprofit working to empower Muslim women to imagine themselves as leaders, scholars and teachers.

Change takes “a lot of patience and a lot of discussion and a lot of just being able to be courageous,” Gray said, adding that Islamic scholarship by women is sometimes met with distrust in Muslim communities.

To that end, she founded the Minnesota-based nonprofit, whose programs include online courses in Islamic sciences. Through virtual gatherings focused on spiritual growth and worship, Gray said, women are able to experience being in a sacred space and then “go back to their own mosque and insist, really, that their mosque make them feel valued, respected, seen.”

During a recent virtual event joined by dozens of women, there were tears, laughter and ululations as the group celebrated Gray’s receipt of a certificate authorizing her to teach certain sayings and traditions of the prophet.

“The words of the prophet … they are weightier than a mountain of gold,” Gray told the group.

Promoting women’s spiritual leadership is crucial to keeping Muslims connected to their faith in America, in the eyes of Celene Ibrahim, a chaplain who researches gender and Islam.

“You can’t carry this on your own,” Ibrahim said, referring to male religious leaders. “This is a big task, and it’s an all-hands-on-deck kind of task.”

In the West Bank 

Al-Faqeeh, the judge, said that women’s long absence from judgeships in the Palestinian Islamic court owed in part to custom and to the fact that many viewed the post “as a religious position, like that of an imam.”

On the contrary, she said she saw it as a judicial one that relies on the rulings of the Islamic Shariah, and argued that there are no reasons to exclude women.

There were bumps in the road, both big and small, after her appointment, as some male judges and court employees seemed less than happy about it. Opposition also came in the form of a Friday sermon that she did not attend but in which, she was told, the speaker railed against allowing women to hold the position.

But things have gone smoother since, and she often senses relief on the part of women with cases before the court who feel they can talk openly to her about sensitive personal issues. “The once-impossible dream became possible,” al-Faqeeh said.

Reem Shanti, 40, who recently applied to become a judge on the religious court and considers al-Faqeeh a role model, said the appointment of women has opened up a world of possibilities for her and others.

“It provided women with an incentive,” Shanti said, “and gave them a strong push.”

 
…

Al Unser, one of only four drivers to win the Indianapolis 500 a record four times, died Thursday following a long illness. He was 82.

Unser died at his home in Chama, New Mexico, with his wife, Susan, by his side, Indianapolis Motor Speedway said early Friday. He had been battling cancer for 17 years.

“My heart is so saddened. My father passed away last night,” son Al Unser Jr., himself a two-time Indy 500 winner, posted on social media. “He was a Great man and even a Greater Father. Rest In Peace Dad!”

Unser is the third member of one of America’s most famed racing families to die in 2021. His oldest brother, three-time Indy 500 winner Bobby Unser, died in May, and Bobby Unser Jr. passed six weeks after his father.

Known as “Big Al” once his own son made a name for himself in racing, Unser is part of an elite club of four-time winners of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” Unser won the Indy 500 in 1970, 1971, 1978 and 1987, and is the only driver in history to have both a sibling and a child also win one of the biggest races in the world.

His final victory at age 47 made him the oldest winner in Indy 500 history. He dominated in his first Indy win in 1970 by starting from the pole and leading all but 10 of the 200 laps. Unser beat runner-up Mark Donohue by 32 seconds that year.

Unser led over half the laps in three of his Indy 500 victories, and his 644 total laps led at Indianapolis is most in race history. He made 27 starts in the Indy 500, third most in history, and qualified once on the pole and five times on the front row.

Unser won three Indy car national championships over his career, and his total of 39 victories is sixth on the all-time list.

He and son Al Jr. were the first father-son pairing at Indianapolis, and in 1985 they battled one another for the CART championship. A pass in the closing laps of the race gave Unser a fourth-place finish in the season finale at Miami’s Tamiami Park road course, and it was enough for him to beat Al Jr. for the championship by a single point. He fought back tears while describing the “empty feeling” of defeating his son.

Unser also ran five NASCAR races in his career, finishing fourth in the 1968 Daytona 500. He earned three top-10 finishes in NASCAR. He also won three times in the International Race of Champions, an all-star series that pitted the top drivers from various disciplines against each other.

Unser won the Indy car “Triple Crown” by winning all three of of the 500-mile races on the 1978 schedule, which included stops at Pocono Raceway and in Ontario, California. He’s the only driver in history to win all three of those races in the same season.

The Unser family combined for a record nine wins in the Indy 500; Al Jr. won the Indy 500 twice — in 1992 and 1994. Coincidentally, Al Unser, Al Unser Jr. and Bobby Unser all won their final Indy 500s driving for Roger Penske. Helio Castroneves won his first three Indy 500s driving for Penske.

“Al was the quiet leader of the Unser family, a tremendous competitor and one of the greatest drivers to ever race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,” Penske said. “We were honored to help Al earn a place in history with his fourth Indy victory … and he will always be a big part of our team. Our thoughts are with the Unser family as they mourn the loss of a man that was beloved across the racing world and beyond.”

Unser earlier this year was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to welcome Castroneves as the newest member of the four-time winners club. Unser achieved the feat after A.J. Foyt, and Rick Mears won his fourth in 1991. Castroneves won in May to become the first new member in 30 years.

“Some days the race track smiles on you and some days, you got it the other way,” Unser said during the July celebration. “It’s not always that you’re going to think you’re going to win because your chances are very slim. There’s 32 other guys who want it as bad as you do.”

Unser received his Baby Borg — the 18-inch replica of the Indy 500 winner’s Borg-Warner Trophy that lives onsite in the speedway’s museum — during a celebration in May with family and friends. He was set to be honored in 2020 on the the 50th anniversary of his 1970 victory at Indianapolis, but the celebration was postponed because of the pandemic.

Both Castroneves and two-time Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato lauded Unser, with Sato calling Unser’s speech at the May winner’s ceremony “very funny and so charming.”

“I will always remember Big Al welcoming me to the speedway,” Castroneves told The Associated Press on Friday. “He and Johnny Rutherford were the two helping me with my rookie orientation. He will be missed.”

The youngest of four racing brothers, Unser was born in in Albuquerque in 1939 to a family of hardcore racers. His father Jerry Unser and two uncles, Louis and Joe, were also drivers. Beginning in 1926 the family began competing in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, an annual road race held in Colorado.

Al’s oldest brother, Jerry, became the first Unser to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 in 1958; he was killed in a crash during practice the following year.

Unser began racing himself in 1957 when he was 18, but competed mostly in sprint cars. He made it to Indy in 1965 driving in a car owned by Foyt and was part of a rookie class with future Indy 500 winners Mario Andretti (1969) and Gordon Johncock (1973, 1982).

“Al was one of the smartest drivers I ever raced against,” Andretti said. “I often said that I wished I could have had some of his patience.”

The Unser family combined for 73 career starts in the Indy 500 — a number bettered only by the 76 starts by the Andretti family. The Unser participation spans Al (27 races), Bobby (19), and Al Jr. (19), as well as Johnny (five), Robby (two) and Jerry (one).

Unser was inducted into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame in 1986 and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1998. His collection of trophies and cars is housed at the Unser Racing Museum in Albuquerque.

Unser is survived by wife, Susan, and son, Al Jr. He was preceded in death by daughters Mary and Deborah.
…

Former Empire actor Jussie Smollett was convicted Thursday on charges he staged an anti-gay, racist attack on himself nearly three years ago and then lied to Chicago police about it.

In the courtroom as the verdict was read, Smollett stood and faced the jury, showing no visible reaction.

The jury found the 39-year-old guilty on five counts of disorderly conduct — for each separate time he was charged with lying to police in the days immediately after the alleged attack. He was acquitted on a sixth count, of lying to a detective in mid-February, weeks after Smollett said he was attacked.

Outside court, special prosecutor Dan Webb called the verdict “a resounding message by the jury that Mr. Smollett did exactly what we said he did.”

Judge James Linn set a post-trial hearing for Jan. 27 and said he would schedule Smollett’s sentencing at a later date. Disorderly conduct is a felony that carries a prison sentence of up to three years, but experts have said if convicted, Smollett would likely be placed on probation and ordered to perform community service.

The damage to his personal and professional life may be more severe. Smollett lost his role on the TV program Empire after prosecutors said the alleged attack was a hoax, and he told jurors earlier this week that “I’ve lost my livelihood.”

The jury deliberated for just more than nine hours Wednesday and Thursday after a roughly one-week trial in which two brothers testified that Smollett recruited them to fake the attack near his home in downtown Chicago in January 2019. They said Smollett orchestrated the hoax, telling them to put a noose around his neck and rough him up in view of a surveillance camera, and that he said he wanted video of the hoax made public via social media.

Smollett testified that he was the victim of a real hate crime, telling jurors, “There was no hoax.” He called the brothers liars and said the $3,500 check he wrote them was for meal and workout plans. His attorneys argued that the brothers attacked the actor — who is gay and Black — because they are homophobic and didn’t like “who he was.” They also alleged the brothers made up the story about the attack being staged to get money from Smollett, and that they said they wouldn’t testify against him if Smollett paid them each $1 million.

In closing arguments Wednesday, Webb told jurors there was “overwhelming evidence” that Smollett staged the attack, then lied to police about it for publicity. He said Smollett caused Chicago police to spend enormous resources investigating what they believed was a hate crime.

“Besides being against the law, it is just plain wrong to outright denigrate something as serious as a real hate crime and then make sure it involved words and symbols that have such historical significance in our country,” Webb said.

Defense attorney Nenye Uche called the brothers “sophisticated liars” who may have been motivated to attack Smollett because of homophobia or because they wanted to be hired to work as his security.

 
…

Experts say that for the U.S. diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics to be effective, more countries will need to participate. But that could be challenging given some countries’ economic ties to China or recognized prowess in winter sports.

Since the Biden administration’s announcement this week that it would not send an official U.S. delegation to the Beijing Olympics, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada have joined the diplomatic boycott. That means no officials or diplomats from these countries will attend, although their athletes are still scheduled to compete in the February 4-20 Games.

All four countries said the boycott was in response to human rights violations by the Chinese government. During Monday’s White House briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki said the U.S. boycott was a statement against China’s “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said at a news conference on Wednesday that his government had raised its concerns with Beijing regarding “human rights abuses and issues in Xinjiang.”

And as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the decision, he expressed “extreme concern by the repeated human rights violations by the Chinese government.”

New Zealand reiterated this week that it would not send any government ministers to the Beijing Games, citing “a range of factors but mostly to do with COVID.”

Julian Ku, a professor of constitutional law at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, told VOA Mandarin via email Wednesday that the leaders’ statements indicate how seriously these countries take allegations of China’s human rights abuses and how willing they are to face criticism and retaliation from Beijing.

China has faced widespread international criticism for its treatment of the Uyghurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities as well as its crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.

Boycott scenarios

If the boycott fails to draw widespread support, “it will be easier for the Chinese government to focus on a few countries who are ‘attacking’ it. But if it is a broader range of countries, then I think it would be harder for China to make it seem like a U.S.-led conspiracy against it,” Ku wrote.

Susan Brownell, an anthropology professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis with expertise in Chinese sports and the Olympic Games, told VOA Mandarin on Wednesday that “this is a really critical period right now. If a large number of countries jump on board immediately, it really will have much more impact. If it’s only what the Chinese sometimes call the ‘Anglo-Saxon clique,’ if the vast majority of the nearly 100 countries participating don’t follow at all or take a long time to follow, then that will have less impact.”

At a daily briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian responded to the boycott, warning the U.S. “to stop politicizing sports, and stop disrupting and undermining the Beijing Winter Olympics.”

When asked about any countermeasures China might take, Zhao said “the U.S. would pay a price for its erroneous actions,” without providing details.

Brownell said the European Union’s position on the boycott was particularly important because the Winter Games are “entirely dominated by European countries.”

France, host of the next Summer Games, and Italy said they would not join the boycott. Germany and the Netherlands said they were seeking a “common EU stance.”

Norway, a winter Olympics powerhouse, said it would not participate in the diplomatic boycott.

Loss of trust

It’s unclear whether the EU will forge a common ground, Brownell said, because many Eastern European nations, such as Poland and Hungary, want to develop trade relationships with China and are not “huge supporters of human rights.”

“Another point is that many of our old allies felt a bit betrayed during the Trump era, and the U.S. lost their trust, and they’re not as likely to immediately follow the U.S. as they would have been before that,” she added.

The Beijing Games face challenges beyond the boycott. A November 29 article in the Chinese state-run Global Times said that because of the pandemic, “it’s not practical to invite too many foreign guests to China.”

The Global Times also reported it had “learned that as the host country, China has no plan to invite politicians who hype the ‘boycott’ of the Beijing Games.”

Meanwhile, some experts said that the International Olympic Committee should be blamed for the current controversy around the Beijing Olympics.

Jules Boykoff, a former professional soccer player who is now a political science professor at Pacific University in Oregon, told VOA Mandarin via email that the IOC deserved “a huge amount of the blame for the situation. … After all, they decided to allocate the 2022 Winter Olympics to Beijing even though they knew full well that serious human rights abuses were happening in China. Rather than standing up for the principles enshrined in its own charter, the IOC chose to look the other way in order to keep the Olympics — the IOC’s golden money spigot — on track.”

On Tuesday, Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., the IOC’s coordination commission chief for the Beijing Winter Olympics, said, “We always ask for as much respect as possible and least possible interference from the political world. … We have to be reciprocal. We respect the political decisions taken by political bodies.”

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
…

Despite a growing number of Western countries announcing diplomatic boycotts of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the United Nations secretary-general, António Guterres, will attend the Games.

“The Secretary-General received an invitation from the International Olympic Committee to attend the Beijing Winter Games, and he has accepted it,” said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.  

“I mean, as you know, I think his two immediate predecessors have attended almost every Olympic Game since at least 2002.”

Citing China’s human rights abuses, the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and Lithuania will not be sending diplomatic delegations to the Games.

The boycott allows the nations to send athletic delegations to the Games while refusing to send any high-ranking officials or dignitaries as an official delegation.

Human rights groups have called on nations to fully boycott the Beijing Winter Games over China’s human rights abuses, including the detention of millions of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang province and the crackdown on pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong.   

Beijing has denounced the boycotts as “posturing” and has vowed to retaliate with unspecified “countermeasures” against the United States over its decision to stage a diplomatic boycott of the Games, which run from February 4 to 20. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

During COVID when all the theaters were closed, two sisters decided to take their musical talents to the only stage available: the street. The rest, as they say, is history. Anna Nelson reports. Anna Rice narrates her story.
Camera: Natalia Latukhina, Vladimir Badikov
…

98-year-old photographer Tony Vaccaro was a simple infantryman, but he unofficially photographed World War II for 272 days. Anna Nelson met with Vaccaro to talk about his role in documenting the war. Anna Rice narrates her story.
…

Australia will stage a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, mirroring a  similar move by the United States. 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the boycott Wednesday in Canberra, citing a range of issues including accusations of human rights abuses against China and Beijing’s refusal to hold bilateral talks to resolve lingering trade and diplomatic disputes. 

A diplomatic boycott means that no Australian officials will attend any Beijing Olympics events, but its athletes will still be allowed to participate.   

Relations between Australia and China have turned sour in recent years, beginning when Canberra banned Chinese-based tech giant Huawei from building its new 5G broadband network. Relations took a turn for the worse over Australia’s push for an independent probe into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was first detected in late 2019 in central China.

Beijing has retaliated by imposing heavy tariffs on Australia’s barley exports, and imposed tight restrictions on exports of wine, beef and other commodities. China is also angered by Australia’s recent decision to purchase nuclear-powered submarines as part of a new defense pact with Britain and the United States. 

Prime Minister Morrison said “there has been no obstacle” on Australia’s side to hold talks with China on these matters, but he stressed his country “will not step back from the strong position we’ve had standing up for Australia’s interests.” 

“Obviously it is of no surprise that we wouldn’t be sending Australian officials to those Games,” Morrison added. 

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin dismissed Morrison’s announcement, telling reporters “nobody cares” whether or not Australian officials attend the Olympics. 

Matt Carroll, the chief executive of the Australian Olympic Committee, said the organization’s main focus is “getting the athletes to Beijing safely, competing safely and bringing them home safely.” 

The administration of President Joe Biden announced Monday it would be staging a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which will run between February 4 to 20. 

President Biden said last month he was considering a diplomatic boycott because of criticism of China’s human rights abuses, including the detention of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang province and the crackdown on pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong.   

Beijing has vowed to take “countermeasures” against Washington over the boycott. 

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and  Agence France-Presse.  
…

Allyship, an old noun made new again, is Dictionary.com’s word of the year. 

The look up site with 70 million monthly users took the unusual step of anointing a word it added just last month, though “allyship” first surfaced in the mid-1800s, said one of the company’s content overseers, John Kelly. 

“It might be a surprising choice for some,” he told The Associated Press ahead of Tuesday’s unveiling. “In the past few decades, the term has evolved to take on a more nuanced and specific meaning. It is continuing to evolve and we saw that in many ways.” 

The site offers two definitions for allyship: The role of a person who advocates for inclusion of a “marginalized or politicized group” in solidarity but not as a member, and the more traditional relationship of “persons, groups or nations associating and cooperating with one another for a common cause or purpose.” 

The word is set apart from “alliance,” which Dictionary.com defines in one sense as a “merging of efforts or interests by persons, families, states or organizations.” 

It’s the first definition that took off most recently in the mid-2000s and has continued to churn.  

Following the summer of 2020 and the death of George Floyd, white allies — and the word allyship — proliferated as racial justice demonstrations spread. Before that, straight allies joined the causes of LGBTQ oppression, discrimination and marginalization. 

“This year, we saw a lot of businesses and organizations very prominently, publicly, beginning efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Allyship is tied to that. In the classroom, there is a flashpoint around the term critical race theory. Allyship connects with this as well,” Kelly said. 

In addition, teachers, frontline workers and mothers who juggled jobs, home duties and child care in lockdown gained allies as the pandemic took hold last year. 

Without an entry for “allyship,” Kelly said the site saw a steep rise in lookups for “ally” in 2020 and large spikes in 2021. It was in the top 850 searches out of thousands and thousands of words this year. Dictionary.com broadened the definition of “ally” to include the more nuanced meaning. The terms “DEI” and “critical race theory” made their debuts as entries on the site with “allyship” this year. 

What it means to be an authentic ally has taken on fresh significance as buzz around the word has grown louder. One of the aspects of allyship, as it has emerged, is how badly it can go. 

Among the examples of how to use the word in a sentence cited by Merriam-Webster is this one written by Native activist Hallie Sebastian: “Poor allyship is speaking over marginalized people by taking credit and receiving recognition for arguments that the unprivileged have been making for their entire lives.” 

As global diversity, equity and inclusion executive Sheree Atcheson wrote in Forbes, allyship is a “lifelong process of building relationships based on trust, consistency and accountability with marginalized individuals and/or groups of people.” It’s not, she said, “self-defined — work and efforts must be recognized by those you are seeking to ally with.” 

Allyship should be an “opportunity to grow and learn about ourselves, whilst building confidence in others,” Atcheson added. 

Among the earliest evidence of the word “allyship,” in its original sense of “alliance,” is the 1849, two-volume work, “The Lord of the Manor, or, Lights and Shades of Country Life” by British novelist Thomas Hall: “Under these considerations, it is possible, he might have heard of Miss Clough’s allyship with the Lady Bourgoin.” 

Kelly did some additional digging into the history of allyship in its social justice sense. While the Oxford English Dictionary dates that use of the word to the 1970s, Kelly found a text, “The Allies of the Negro” by Albert W. Hamilton, published in 1943. It discusses extensively the potential allies of Black people in the struggle for racial equality: 

“What some white liberals are beginning to realize is that they better begin to seek the Negro as an ally,” he wrote. “The new way of life sought by the liberal will be a sham without the racial equality the Negro seeks. And the inclusion of the Negro in the day-to-day work, in the organization, the leadership and the rallying of the support necessary to win a better world, can only be done on the basis of equality.” 

On the other side of allyship, Kelly said, “is a feeling of division, of polarization. That was Jan. 6.” Allyship, he said, became a powerful prism in terms of the dichotomy at a chaotic cultural time during the last two years. 

Other dictionary companies in the word of the year game focused on the pandemic and its fallout for their picks. Oxford Languages, which oversees the Oxford English Dictionary, went for “vax” and Merriam-Webster chose “vaccine.” The Glasgow, Scotland-based Collins Dictionary, meanwhile, plucked “NFT,” the digital tokens that sell for millions. 

While Merriam-Webster relies solely on site search data to choose a word of the year, Dictionary.com takes a broader approach. It scours search engines, a broad range of text and taps into cultural influences to choose its word of the year. 
…

U.S. news outlets say the Biden administration is expected to announce a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games this week.   

A diplomatic boycott means no U.S. officials would attend any events of the Beijing 2022 Games, while still allowing athletes on Team USA to participate. That would avoid a repeat of 1980, when then-President Jimmy Carter kept U.S. athletes from attending the Moscow Summer Games over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979.   

CNN was first to report the expected announcement. 

President Joe Biden has been under enormous pressure from congressional lawmakers to announce a boycott over China’s human rights abuses, including the detention of millions of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang province and the crackdown on pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong.   

Biden said last month he was considering a diplomatic boycott. 

The Beijing Winter Olympics will run from February 4-20. 
…

The Kennedy Center Honors is returning to tradition this year.

The lifetime achievement awards for artistic excellence will be presented Sunday night in a gala at the Kennedy Center’s main opera house after the coronavirus pandemic forced delays and major changes to last year’s plans.

Honorees include Motown Records creator Berry Gordy, “Saturday Night Live” mastermind Lorne Michaels, actress-singer Bette Midler, opera singer Justino Diaz and folk music legend Joni Mitchell.

This year’s event also represents a return to political normalcy, with President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden planning to attend. The Democrat will be the first president to be at the Kennedy Center Honors since 2016. 

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump skipped the show the first three years he was in office after several of the artists honored in 2017, his first year in office, threatened to boycott a White House reception if the Republican participated. 

The Trumps also scrapped a traditional White House ceremony for the honorees, which Biden is resuming. Presidents usually host a lighthearted gathering with the honorees at the White House before the awards ceremony.

Last year, the pandemic forced organizers to bump the annual December ceremony back to May 2021. Performance tributes to the artists were filmed over several nights and at multiple locations on campus.

This year’s main COVID-related modification was shifting the annual Saturday ceremony, where honorees receive their medallions on rainbow-colored ribbons, to the Library of Congress instead of the State Department.

Sunday’s ceremony, which will be broadcast Dec. 22 by CBS, is the centerpiece of the Kennedy Center’s 50th anniversary of cultural programming. The center opened in 1971.
…

Somalia’s annual Mogadishu International Book Fair has resumed following the suspension of the event last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Restrictions were applied to the invitation-only event this year in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The sixth edition of the Mogadishu book fair was a big distraction for residents of the capital, Mogadishu, away from the political tension linked to disagreements over the ongoing parliamentary elections in the country.

This year’s book fair was limited to a few people, especially authors, due to the coronavirus pandemic. But according to the founder of the fair, Mohamed Diini, organizers are already working to accommodate more people next year.

“In essence, we really are doing about 10% of what we did and, ultimately, we just wanted to do something, even if it is little so that next year, we can go back to our previous state, Insha Allah,” Diini  said.

Selected students from Mogadishu schools were invited this year to the children’s corner, where they enjoyed reading, storytelling and cultural tales.

Hanan Abdi Tahlil from Mogadishu International School is one of them.

She said she is very happy and excited to take part in the Mogadishu book fair this year, adding that they enjoyed storytelling from Cigaal Shidaad and Wiil Waal fictional tales among others. She also said she was looking forward to attending next year.

Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble, who is busy resolving an electoral-related stalemate, congratulated the organizers of the book fair.

In a tweet, the prime minister stressed the need to encourage the pen and the book to replace arms and tribalism.
…

Through clouds of billowing dust, two men circle each other warily before one plunges forward, grabbing his rival’s clothing and, after a brief struggle, deftly tackling him to the ground.

The crowd, arrayed in a circle around them, some sitting on the ground, others standing or clambering onto the backs of rickshaws for a better view in a park in the Afghan capital, erupts in cheers. Victor and vanquished smile good-naturedly, embracing briefly before some of the spectators press banknotes into the winner’s hand. 

The scene is one played out each week after Friday prayers in the sprawling Chaman-e-Huzori park in downtown Kabul, where men — mainly from Afghanistan’s northern provinces — gather to watch and to compete in pahlawani, a traditional form of wrestling. 

Although the Taliban, who took over Afghanistan in mid-August, had previously banned sports when they ruled the country in the 1990s, pahlawani had been exempt even then. Now, just over three months into their new rule of the country, a handful of Taliban police attended the Friday matches as security guards.

The matches are simple affairs. There is no arena other than the broad circle formed by the spectators. The competitors, barefoot in the dust, all use the same tunics, one blue and one white, passed from one athlete to the next for each match. Each competitor represents his province, with the name and province announced to the spectators by the referee.

Each match has four rounds, and the winner is the first who can flip his opponent onto his back. A referee officiates, while judges among the crowd deliver their verdicts in cases when there is no obvious winner. Many end in ties.

“We provide this facility so our people can have some enjoyment,” said Juma Khan, a 58-year-old judge and deputy director of last Friday’s event. A security guard at a market during the day, the former wrestling athlete has been judging competitions for the past 12 years, he said. Just like his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather before him. “It’s our culture.”

Most athletes and spectators spend two to three months in the Afghan capital working — as manual laborers or in hotels, restaurants and markets — before heading back home to their families for a few weeks. 

Pahlawani provides a few hours of much anticipated entertainment. The men gather in the dust-blown field that is Chaman-e-Huzori park at around 2 p.m. every Friday and stay until sunset, with around 10 to 20 young men coming forward from the crowd to compete.

Then, as the sun sets behind Tapai Maranjan hill in the background, the competitors are finished. In the blink of an eye, as billowing dust swirls around speeding rickshaws, their horns blaring, the crowd melts away for another week.
…