The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Stigma of being detainee weighs on hopeful Syrian brides Posted: 30 Apr 2014 07:24 PM PDT Late last year the 32-year-old woman was seized by security forces in the heart of Damascus and held for several weeks after trying to deliver supplies to civilians trapped in rebel-held areas of the Syrian capital. Now free, she is hoping to put the ordeal behind her and get married, and has started meeting potential suitors. But Syria's three-year-old conflict intrudes in all walks of life. The young woman and her mother, fearing that news of her arrest might put those suitors off, do not know how to break the news to a future husband. "We have to tell him about my detention before or during the next visit. It's the right thing to do," says the woman, who asked to be identified only as Mai, to protect her identity. Her mother agrees, but fears that the stigma of detention might affect her daughter's prospects. "I just feel awkward about it," says the mother. "My daughter was in detention. That isn't a statement I ever thought would come out of my mouth." Stigma of female detainees It is not just the perennial fear of all Syrians that, once they come to the attention of the ubiquitous security forces, they – and anyone close to them – could be a marked person. Activists and international rights groups have documented systematic abuse inside Syrian detention centres, with particular humiliation aimed at female detainees who are often forced to strip to their undergarments during interrogation sessions, at times enduring physical and sexual violence. New York-based Human Rights Watch said it interviewed 10 Syrian women last year who had been detained – eight of them said they were abused or tortured while they were held. Although men also suffer abuse in detention, the experience carries additional shame for women, particularly because of the taboo of sexual abuse by male interrogators. "Isn't he going to wonder if Mai had been, you know, God forbid, assaulted? Or forced to strip nude or something?" said Mai's sister, referring to the most promising suitor. Mai, a small, delicate looking woman, who sits upright and maintains intense eye contact as she speaks, says she was neither sexually nor physically assaulted. Speaking in the living room of the modest east Damascus home where she meets her suitors, she says she endured "just a couple of interrogation sessions, and they used harsh words before they sent me back to the cell and seemed to forget about me". But anxious friends and family are unconvinced and, as her sister says, are waiting for Mai "to open up and tell us all that has happened to her". "When she first returned to us, I made an excuse to peek in on her in the shower, but she had no marks on her body. She seemed healthy," she said. "She's been in good spirits. We're so grateful, but I still wonder if she's suffering in silence." Displaced and vulnerable Batoul, 19, has her own set of war-related challenges to overcome before choosing one of the numerous suitors knocking on her door. A year ago she fled fighting in Aleppo without her parents and siblings and came to Damascus to live with her grandmother. Intelligent and attractive, Batoul hails from a middle class family that would normally have carefully vetted all marriage prospects. Now displaced and cut off from her Aleppo community, Batoul has attracted opportunist suitors. "I think they see a young woman with broken wings, given that she's displaced and away from her family, and they think they can exploit her situation," Batoul's grandmother said. She says she has turned away many suitors after discovering they lied or misled her, behaviour that would have been difficult to pull off in Aleppo's pre-war community. But in Damascus, there was the one who failed to mention he is divorced with a child, and another who lied about his age, shaving off five years to make himself more suitable. One suitor promised Batoul "money and houses in return for a secret marriage" – in other words, an illicit affair. A few suitors passed muster, only to end up offering Batoul "an insultingly low" dowry. "We know times are hard on everyone and Batoul will never get the dowry she would have in the good days before the war," said her grandmother. "But I get the sense that people offer an even lower dowry still because they think she's desperate because she's displaced and they want to exploit that. That's what upsets me," she said in her one bedroom apartment in the Rukneddine district of Damascus. In Islamic tradition, the groom pays a dowry to the bride. In Syria, the dowry comes in jewellery and cash, which the bride often uses to buy a new wardrobe and a wedding gown. The groom is responsible for providing housing and all household-related expenses like furniture and appliances, which these days amount to a hefty sum. As for Mai, she is gearing up to reveal her secret to her suitor. "It will be a test for him," she says. "If he walks away because of my former detention, then he's weak and probably a government loyalist. If he sticks with me, then he's all right." Her mother is not so sure. "I just want her married already. I want her to stay out of trouble." – Reuters, May 1, 2014. |
| Researchers say Neanderthals were not our dim-witted inferiors Posted: 30 Apr 2014 06:37 PM PDT That's the message a pair of researchers delivered on Wednesday after analysing archaeological evidence detailing the capabilities of Neanderthals, our closest extinct human relative, compared to the early modern humans who first crossed their path about 40,000 years ago. The researchers said the findings show Neanderthals were anything but the incompetent dimwits that they are often deemed. These include: complex hunting methods that required a group effort and planning in advance; likely use of spoken language; use of pigments probably for body painting; use of symbolic objects like eagle claws and perforated animal teeth, probably for pendants; and the sophisticated use of fire. "We found no data in support of the supposed technological, social and cognitive inferiority of Neanderthals compared to their modern human contemporaries," said Wil Roebroeks, an archaeologist at the Leiden University in the Netherlands. "The vision of primitive club-wielding brutes who in the end vanished when superior modern humans entered their world has been obsolete for a long time already," Roebroeks added. Neanderthals prospered across Europe and Asia from about 350,000 to about 40,000 years ago, but disappeared after early modern humans trekked into Europefrom Africa. Many scientists had postulated that Neanderthals were too stupid, clumsy and incompetent to survive a competition with the smart and inventive modern humans who invaded their territory. Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, said the truth is far more complex. Genetic evidence shows there was inter-breeding between Neanderthals and the early modern humans, Villa noted. Male offspring resulting from inter-breeding were likely infertile, which may have contributed to a Neanderthal population decline, Villa said. The remnants of the Neanderthal population eventually may have been assimilated into the larger modern human population in a process that unfolded over a period of a few thousands of years, she added. "In a certain sense, they are not completely extinct because some Neanderthal genes are present in our genome," Villa said. There were some anatomical differences between the two species: the robust, large-browed Homo neanderthalensis and the sleeker Homo sapiens. For example, the bodies of Neanderthals were shorter and stockier than modern humans, and the middle part of the face was bigger, with a larger nose. Writing in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, Villa and Roebroeks highlighted some of the capabilities of Neanderthals. They pointed to archaeological sites in Europe such as one in southwestern France, where Neanderthals probably herded bison to their deaths by leading them into a sinkhole. At a Channel Islands site, fossil remains of mammoths and woolly rhinos that most likely had been the target of an organized hunt by Neanderthals were found at the base of a ravine. – Reuters, May 1, 2014. |
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