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Malala and Me

The most influential public figure throughout my young adulthood was an individual only a year older than myself: Malala Yousafzai. I was 13 when I first heard about Malala, before her platform developed its global presence of today. She fought for a girl’s right to an education despite the looming threat of the Taliban, who would destroy girls’ schools after taking over an area, forbid girls from attending school, and actively encourage women to not read or write. I remember watching her on the news as she was transported to a hospital in England in critical condition after being shot in the head by a member of the Taliban. In that now-famous picture of Malala in the hospital, the bed seemed to swallow her whole. She was just a little girl at the time, but I distinctly remember feeling her resolute strength within me.

Malala and her story have informed many aspects of my identity; I often feel as though I grew up alongside her. As she advocated for girls’ rights on a global platform, I did so on my own local stage. She brought awareness to girls’ illiteracy by speaking out against injustice, and I too advocated for change by promoting the efforts of a girls’ school in Pakistan that I worked closely with over the years. I remember the joy I felt when, in a speech about women’s illiteracy, I mentioned that Malala was the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. I felt as though I was a part of a bigger movement: the story of Malala allowed me to step outside of myself and place my identity within a larger social context.

Certainly, Malala was the impetus for my involvement in activism and girls’ literacy efforts. She was a veritable connection between myself and the inner workings of the world. However, more recently I have come to realize that her platform has been founded on principles of peace and tolerance that are uncontroversial and thereby have been easily adopted and manipulated by Westerners within the national and international sphere.

The fact that Malala is infantilized by Western media is no secret. Rosie Walters of the University of Bristol analyzed over 220 UK articles to identify the dominant discourses about Malala. She noted that Malala is infantilized by Western media, which frequently emphasizes her youth and utilizes a paternalistic tone: “She is labeled a girl 143 times, a schoolgirl 185 times, a teenager 116 times, a small girl and even a little girl on five occasions, while she is called a young woman just 23 times and a woman only once,” despite being between 15 and 18 years old at the time these articles were written.

Many articles also place her in a passive role, subject to the “paternalistic caring” of Great Britain. Walters notes, “When analyzed to see whether they presented Yousafzai in an active (doing and deciding things) or passive (having things done or decided for or against her) role, just 69 of 211 constructions were indeed active, with the tabloids in particular preferring headlines such as ‘Double op success for shot girl Malala’.”

Why is Malala co-opted so readily? Considering that women in Western countries face few barriers specifically in regards to education, some say that celebrating and supporting the efforts of Malala is oft-times an exercise in curing the “backwardness” of third-world countries while failing to look within and consider how one’s own country may have contributed to this “backwardness” in the first place. Journalist Assed Baig of Dawn criticized her reception in the West, stating that she is used as “a candidate for the white man to relieve his burden and save the native.” Though such attacks fail to acknowledge the homegrown nature of her activism, they underscore the uncontroversial nature of the image curated for her by the West. Malala’s popularity makes sense: her central message seeks empowerment that is unsullied by issues of confrontation with Western international politics, making it easily adoptable. Thus, it makes sense that when Malala is political, as in 2014 when she asserted that “drone strikes fuel terrorism,” her assertions are glossed over or ignored.

The co-option of Malala is contradictory not only with respect to international politics but also in regards to American internal politics. We celebrate her efforts to increase girls’ literacy but fail to acknowledge her strong adherence to the Muslim faith. Malala distinctly identifies as Muslim, but few interviews address this component of her identity. In a sense, we secularize her to fit our own agenda, permitting us to remain in blissful ignorance. Malala herself has promoted a false narrative that the West is open minded about its Muslim brethren and devoted to peace: “In countries other than Pakistan—I won’t necessarily call them ‘Western’—people support me,” she noted in an interview with The Atlantic. “This is because people there respect others. They don’t do this because I am a Pashtun or a Punjabi, a Pakistani, or an Iranian, they do it because of one’s words and character. This is why I am being respected and supported there.”

Nevertheless, our Islamophobia––which is inherently linked to our views on overwhelmingly Muslim groups like the Pashtuns, Punjabis, Pakistanis, and Iranians––remains: the antagonistic American context continues to pit Islam and the West against one another in a “clash of civilizations.” 39% of Americans believe that Islam and the West are incompatible with one another, and US policy has historically reinforced this narrative and emphasized the importance of choosing to be wholly American at the expense of one’s Muslim identity. The Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Program, first instituted under the Obama administration, relied on “insiders” in the Muslim-American community and conflated extremism with religiosity, presenting “good” Muslims as those who were the most moderate and integrated into American culture.

Simply put, Malala herself has inspired me, but her treatment and manipulation by the West has led me to assess how the packaging of pleas for change ultimately affects their success. I see the example of Malala as evidence of how messages based in “peace” and “unity” stunt growth by preventing us from looking within. They are easily manipulable and easily adoptable. Her example poses the ethical question: how do we format activist stances so that they are wholly and accurately heard, especially when such points of view are posited by marginalized people? What language, and terms, can we use in these forms of communication? How does packaging affect the adoption of such messages?

 

Why we need Love, Simon

The movie Love, Simon is the first studio movie to feature a gay protagonist. Let that sink in. It’s 2018, and there has only ever been one movie produced by a major film company that tells the story of an LGBTQ+ person’s experiences. Popular discourse on social media within my personal circle has been overwhelmingly in support of the movie, but every now and then a post will creep onto my timeline questioning the necessity of the film. “There’s no way this movie will make any money when its targeted towards such a small audience,” or, “I just don’t think we need this in 2018, the gay rights movement is already over,” and, most concerning and disparaging, “Why do they have to shove the whole gay thing down everyone else’s throats?”

Those comments in themselves are the reasons we’ve needed a movie like Love, Simon for years. Heterosexual romances have been the focus of film since its inception as a media, and the little representation that LGBTQ+ people have been afforded is largely stereotypical and often offensive. In a recent study conducted by GLAAD, (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, learn more here and view the full study here) only 22 of the 126 major films released in 2015 featured LGBTQ+ representation at all, and not one queer character had a leading role. Furthermore, only 32.1% of these characters were people of color, and 71% of them received less than 10 minutes of screentime. Queer characters that do exist are usually predominantly defined by their sexuality and serve no purpose to the plot, only appearing to serve as an unoriginal punchline and then making a swift, unnoticeable exit.

This is where Love, Simon excels. The film focuses on a closeted, gay high school student who is in every way a “normal” teenager. His sexuality is only one component of a multi-faceted identity. His struggle of not being able to be his true self to his friends and family is fully realized and compelling. Additionally, there are two queer people of color who appear in the film, both of whom are depicted as experiencing their own struggles related to their identities. Sexualities do not define real people like they often do in media, and creating characters that are more than their queerness has seemed to be an insurmountable challenge for Hollywood, until now.

As a gay person myself, the most striking aspect of the film is how incredibly real it is. There were moments when I felt like the screenwriters had reached into my memories and extracted scenes word-for-word. It shows the taboos associated with flirting and the infuriating guessing game you have to play every time you’re interested in someone. It characterizes the pressure placed on LGBTQ+ people to assimilate into gay culture, even if it doesn’t feel natural. It depicts the difficulties of coming out, even to people you know would be understanding. It perfectly illustrates the raw desperation with which you cling to the closet, because it’s impossible to imagine that your life will ever be the same after revealing your most shrouded secret.

Before seeing Love, Simon, I never really thought that I was missing out. I never truly related to typical movie romances, but I could still empathize with the characters and immerse myself in their worlds. However, I have never seen a movie that made me feel so validated. Seeing my struggles on the big screen, knowing that there are people who have experienced and are experiencing the same emotions that I do is profoundly liberating. Sure, it’s a cliché teenage rom-com that follows all the banal plotlines of the genre, but there is so much value in seeing them portrayed through the lense of queerness. For the first time, gay people can witness what it means to be young and in love through media, and straight people can peer into the private conflicts that queer people grapple with. We, and I mean everyone of all identities, need Love, Simon and more movies like it.

 

Kenan’s Arete Initiative Hosts National Summer School in Ethics

From July 9th to 14th, John Rose, Associate Director of the Arete Initiative at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and several Duke professors led a seminar in ethics, philosophy, and religion for twenty-two rising high school seniors from around the country. The seminar posed questions regarding the foundations of morality and human rights, such as: Are religion or God necessary for morality and human rights to make sense? If not, what are their bases? Utility, social contracts? In what sense are basic rights “self-evident,” as the American founders claimed, given that people are born of different strengths and privileges? Students also reflected on the relationship between philosophy and religion, as well as the relationship between religion and science, raising the question of whether the natural sciences provide us with ethical direction or a justification for morality.

Evaluations showed that the students found the seminar to be intellectually rewarding and influential in their lives. As one student wrote, “I know I’m going to carry the things I’ve learned here for the rest of my life. Thank you.” Another remarked, “This seminar was amazing, and I’ll never forget it. I feel like I can’t even review it objectively because it’s become very dear to me.”

What does good medicine require?: Kenan’s Arete Project Hosts National Workshop for Medical Students

From June 25th to 29th, Professors Farr Curlin (Duke) and Chris Tollefsen (University of South Carolina) led nineteen students in the first annual Arete Medical Ethics Seminar on Duke’s campus. Most of the students had already begun their medical education—at institutions such as Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and Dartmouth—while others were preparing to enter medical school this fall. The seminar offered the students a chance to reflect philosophically on the purpose of their intended occupation. The seminar began with the question, what is health, or, put differently, what is medicine? Is the goal of medicine to increase patient satisfaction, to reduce suffering, to respect patient autonomy, to promote health? Do these answers ever come into conflict? If so, what then does good medicine require? For all their sophisticated educational offerings, medical schools are often reluctant to address this question. How the medical profession understands “health” can and will affect how a doctor may think about hard cases like euthanasia and abortion.

In a time when burnout rates among doctors are at all-time highs (and continue to rise), it is crucial for physicians-in-training to reflect on why they do what they do, why they put up with the grind of medical school, the trial of rotations, and, for some, the endless charting required in certain subfields of medicine. The faculty and students in the seminar grappled with these hard questions in the spirit of finding truth. In evaluating the seminar, one participant wrote, “[it] came right at the perfect time in my life and has given me a clear context to view medical ethics going forward in practice as a physician, and as a citizen in greater society. It was a true privilege to be a part of the seminar.”

International Scholars Convene to Reconsider Disciplines: Facing the Antropocene Hosts Annual Workshop at Duke

Theologian Norman Wirzba and Law professor Jedediah Purdy, with support from the Henry Luce Foundation and the Kenan Institute for Ethics, have convened a group of scholars from across disciplines to discuss how the academy might better respond to the environmental crisis. When the Luce Anthropocene Working Group had their first meeting on June 27th-29th at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Purdy opened by inviting participants to reflect on what issues and problems has led each of them to their current work, and to share one or two questions that they find particularly difficult. Quoting Donna Haraway, Purdy encouraged working group members to “stay with the trouble,” that is, to seek out those areas of their field that resist solutions.

The responses were diverse, but connected. Historian Kate Brown said that she struggles to write narratives of the landscapes and people harmed by nuclear industries that are not so depressing as to lead readers into despair: how, she asked, do we write stories of environmental crises that give people tools for survival? Anthropologist Tim Ingold spoke of the important distinction between optimism and hope; while optimism lulls us into comfort by leading us to believe that science will fix everything, hope makes room for each generation to be a new generation, to begin again. As educators, he said, it is tempting to think it is our job to say what the end will be, but instead we should help our students cultivate hope by leaving room for the kinds of uncertainty that make hope possible. Willie Jennings pointed out that from his point of view as an African American theologian, hope is a discipline shaped inside a melancholy situation. “I do not have to stay with the trouble,” said Jennings, “the trouble stays with me.” Jennings pointed to two troubles in particularly: the ongoing commodification of everything, which makes black life in the West a constant negotiation with commodification and exploitation; and the problem of projection – so much of our educational pedagogies revolve around the idea that the world does not speak to us. This idea limits the ways in which students are invited to connect with and experience landscapes. Physicist Rhadika Khosla, whose work focuses on issues of energy and climate change in urbanizing environments, spoke of forms of optimism rampant at the intersection of physical and social sciences. She explained how a vocabulary of solutions allows scholars to avoid thinking about complex issues that defy quick fixes. This, she said, has produced a divorce between what academics write and the lived realities of communities, the latter of which do not always conform to sellable stories of improvement.

These opening comments gives you a sense of the range and complexity of the working group’s conversations over the next two days. In addition to the people already mentioned, participants included writer Robert Macfarlane, biologist Robin Kimmerer, theologian Janet Soskice, professor of Law Douglas Kysar, literature scholar Kate Rigby, and historian Micah Muscolino. “We have invited scholars from multiple fields in order to discuss urgent questions posed by the planetary crises,” said Wirzba. “It is a special privilege in academic life to participate in sustained and rigorous conversation with such diverse and generous guests over topics of great urgency and complexity. It was an outstanding beginning to a project that promises to be both generative and creative.”

Some of the topics covered at this first meeting were analytical. What conceptions of humanity, the non-human world, political economy, democracy, and justice can help us navigate this time? What assumptions must come into question – about species and nature, about politics and agency, about economics and value? Others are more practical. How might academics reach non-academic audiences? What forms of publishing are appropriate for this time? Are there means of communication available beyond the written word and how might we utilize them?

Muscolino suggested that attention to aesthetics – to making beautiful books, for example – is one way of engaging audiences beyond academia and of cultivating hope. Rigby, Brown, and Kimmerer imagined making survival videos based on 1950s nuclear bomb drills; using humor and parody, they proposed, is one way to express the scale of the problems facing us without overwhelming audiences. Macfarlane highlighted story-telling. He pointed out that when Kate Brown had told a story of the Red Forest near Chernobyl, everyone in the room leaned forward, eager to listen to her narrative. Perhaps, he said, the best way to engage people in the questions of climate change is not to start with theory and questions, but to start with stories.

The Luce Anthropocene Working Group will continue these conversations and others next summer, when they will again meet at the Kenan Institute for Ethics. Their work will culminate in a conference in 2020, at which each member of the group will share writing and other projects inspired by the collaboration of the group.

 

Illustration courtesy of Jackie Morris

Kenan Institute Launches New Restorative Justice Project

Circle up: That’s how 40 Duke faculty, administrators and staff spent this past Wednesday when they gathered for KIE’s workshop, Building Restorative Communities @ Duke. This new initiative, led by Kenan Associate Director Ada Gregory and a campus wide steering committee, is introducing restorative practices, to create intentional community around shared values in residential and co-curricular spaces at Duke. The goal is collaborative cultural change at Duke.

The same polarization, isolation and incivility that mark the nation increasingly also mark Duke’s campus. Anger, animosity and distrust spills into social media as much as our everyday interactions. Racial and other bias incidents, hazing, sexual assault, harassment and plain indecency sometimes mar what should be an environment of self-discovery, purpose and meaning. But on Duke’s campus as elsewhere such incidents are met with a punitive or paternalistic response which does little to change behavior over time. Building Restorative Community@Duke (BRC@Duke) is based on the fundamental premise that people are happier, more cooperative, more productive and more likely to make positive changes when they work with others in authority to address concerns. The restorative practices model provides a guiding philosophy to foster community that proactively develops positive relationships, creates shared values, and manages conflict through social discipline that restores relationships by acknowledging and repairing harms. In so doing, social wellbeing, belonging and civic participation increases while misbehavior, harassment and violence decreases. This relational approach includes a continuum of practices guided by restorative principles that focuses on needs and obligations that we have to each other in community. Circle processes, conferencing and affective expression/questions provide individuals with a mechanism to dialogue, express feelings, ideas and experiences and reflect on how their behavior affects others.

To see how restorative community works in practice, the workshop provided an overview of key concepts, conversations with practitioners, and experiential opportunities. Marcia Owen and Kacey Reynolds of RJ Durham shared their experiences and lessons learned using restorative practices in the community; and the afternoon was filled with various kinds of restorative circles—even drumming circles—to build community, recognize shared values, and create dialogue around issues on campus or in the community. Participants described the day as “meaningful”, “life giving” and “transformative.”

Gregory is energized by the possibilities restorative community could offer Duke, “Because restorative practices free us from looking only through the lens of rule or law violations, we have the opportunity to address all kinds of behaviors and harms with which we often struggle. When the right to free speech seems to provide no means of accountability for something that is perhaps legally protected but nonetheless disconcerting, ugly, or even abhorrent, restorative practices provide an opportunity for us all to engage as a community to articulate how we want to be.”

As one participant noted, the movement has begun.