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SA activist wins international Freedom of Expression award

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Zanele Muholi has won the Freedom of Expression Index award over punk group Pussy Riot, filmmaker Haifaa al Mansour and cartoonist Aseem Trivedi.

The Index Awards, which are part of the Freedom of Expression Awards, are, according to the organisers, "an extraordinary celebration of the courageous and determined individuals around the world who have stood up for free expression, often at great personal risk".

The prizes are handed outby the Index on Censorship Institute, which also compiles the Media Freedom Index.

Muholi received her award from Indexs chair, writer and broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby. Dedicating the award to two friends who were victims of hate crimes and later succumbed to HIV complications, Muholi said: "To all the activists, gender activists, visual activists, queer artists, writers, poets, performers, art activists, organic intellectuals who use all art forms of expressions in South Africa. The war is not over till we reach an end to 'curative rapes' and brutal killing of black lesbians, gays and transpersons in South Africa."

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SA activist wins international Freedom of Expression award

The ritual and freedom of Passover

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The Jewish holiday of Passover begins at sundown on Monday night. The celebratory meal, the Seder, is one of the most universally observed rituals in our tradition. Jews and non Jews alike sit together, share traditional food and explore the central theme of Passover.

As human beings we are entitled to be free, and we have a responsibility to help others be free. Thats why we must begin by asking the central question of the evening: What does it mean to be free? At the Seder, the notion of freedom is about freedom from slavery - from the enslavement that the ancient Israelites experienced - and from enslavements today.

This ritual, repeated year after year, is designed to reinforce both the commitment to keep the value of freedom front and center to help remember that the past is a most critical factor in determining the future. Indeed, remembrance is the vehicle that enables us to be truly free. The annual reenactment of enslavement serves to remind us to avoid using our freedom to restrict the freedom in others. The Seder makes us confront the consequences of lacking freedom in visceral ways- tears symbolized by salted water, plagues recollected one by one, and poor mans bread- unleavened bread that is like a cracker and called matzah. Yet along with the weightiness of the themes of the Seder experience we are commanded to sing joyously, sit back in comfortable chairs and eat hors doeuvres in the way that the rich merchants of Ancient Greece would have done 2,000 years ago.

Repetitive rituals in religion are meant to remind us that certain values are so important that they have to be woven into the very fabric of the experience of faith. The tension between slavery and freedom is one such theme in the Jewish tradition. At Passover we celebrate freedom from slavery. Often overlooked is that the tradition takes this theme much further. Whereas Passover is understood as freedom from slavery, there is another lesser known holiday seven weeks later that ends a cycle in which we are to take what we learn from the Seder and build on it. This lesser known holiday is called Shavuot. The holiday celebrates the giving of the Torah, the five books of Moses, to the Israelites on Mt. Sinai.

This giving symbolizes the awesome responsibility that freedom embodies. The idea here is that the concept of freedom is not a static one, we can be free from something and still misunderstand the very nature of freedom. Freedom from slavery is a moral imperative. But it must lead to freedom to perform moral and righteous actions that freedom from slavery allows us, another moral imperative. The movement of freedom from to freedom to completes the purpose of the Seder ritual. Escaping slavery is only the first step on a journey that culminates with the acceptance that as members of a just society we must accept upon ourselves the obligation to act - to embrace a particular set of laws and social norms.

But this obligation to be free to commit ourselves to a just society is also not a simple concept. There are three categories of this obligation in the Jewish tradition. In one category is the relationship between human beings and God; in another, the relationship between one person and another; in the third, the relationship between humanity and the earth which enables us to live and gives us sustenance. These three sets of relationships form a triangle such that our obligations to God inform the way we are obligated to treat our fellow human being and the way we can expect to be treated. It also informs the way we treat the earth upon which we live. The theme of the holiday of Shavuot is that by including God, all of our interactions can be elevated. In a very real sense, Gods inclusion was meant to mitigate what might be our default position - indifference or worse - to our fellow human beings and disregard for the earth from which we are made and which sustains us, nurtures us and to which our bodies return upon death.

Passover is the celebration of freedom from oppression, and Shavuot is the celebration of the obligations that we freely accept upon ourselves as creatures of God destined to live our lives with infinite other beings on one shared space we call earth. At this time of year, we can all look at what we require to be free from in order to be free to find our own potential and the potential of our world.

Dr. James Hyman is CEO of the Partnership for Jewish Life and Learning.

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The ritual and freedom of Passover

Chennai Museum – Art Exhibition 2013 – Indian Freedom Fighters – Artist A.Karthikeyan BSc.Viscom – Video

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Chennai Museum - Art Exhibition 2013 - Indian Freedom Fighters - Artist A.Karthikeyan BSc.Viscom
Chennai Museum - Art Exhibition 2013 - Indian Freedom Fighters - Artist A.Karthikeyan BSc.Viscom,Chennai,Tamilnadu,India.

By: anitoonartist

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Chennai Museum - Art Exhibition 2013 - Indian Freedom Fighters - Artist A.Karthikeyan BSc.Viscom - Video

Freedom , Parkland swimmers head all-area team

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All the excitement at the PIAA state swimming and diving championships came late on the final day of both 2A boys and 3A boys competition at Bucknell last weekend.

In the third race from the end, Freedom junior Peter Conzola was hidden over in Lane 1 after a not-so-good preliminary time that had him in seventh place in the 100 backstroke final. But he liked that.

"I don't like having the top seed," Conzola said. "I put too much pressure on myself."

Lane 1 was almost ideal. Hidden from the spectators because of the crush of people along the side of the pool, Conzola 'quietly' had a phenomenal final 50 yards, passing everyone else to take the gold medal. Leading the cheering along the sideline was the public address announcer, who happened to be Freedom athletic director Fred Harris.

It was the area's only 3A gold medal of the meet and earns Conzola the placing as The Morning Call 3A boys swimmer of the year.

Parkland's Megan Polaha entered her final meet figuratively and literally anchoring the Trojan team that finished sixth overall in the team standings.. On the first day of competition, she was the second seed in the 200 IM, where she finished fourth. Two races later, she again finished fourth, this time in the 100 butterfly. The Fordham-bound Polaha then turned around and swam the third leg in the 200 free relay, where the Trojans finished fifth.

For Parkland's final girls' race of the event, she swam the second leg of the Trojans' 400 free relay team that finished sixth.

For her efforts at Bucknell, and for her outstanding senior season at Parkland, she is named The Morning Call 3A girls swimmer of the year.

Salisbury's Eric Tatum is the 2A boys swimmer of year, not only for the season but for his performance at Bucknell. Eric Tatum won almost every race he entered, either individually or as a member of a relay team, during the regular season. He was named the Dennis A. McGinley Award winner at the district meet for winning four gold medals.

Bucknell seemed to hex him, though. After skipping the 200 free relay, his first race was the 100 butterfly, where he was defending his gold medal winner. This time he lost by .01 second to Robert Sikatzki of Fairview.

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Freedom , Parkland swimmers head all-area team

Freedom of information act is a powerful weapon

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Feature Article of Monday, 25 March 2013

Columnist: Boham, Hector O.

Freedom of information act is a powerful weapon against corruption; SO WHY HAS ITS PASSAGE CONTINUED TO REMAIN ELUSIVE TO THE GHANAIAN PARLIAMENT?

On Friday March 22, 2013 in a meeting with journalists at the Flagstaff house, President Mahama made a profound and preeminent declaration when he said I have no fear of the right to information bill.it is not a monster and I think Parliament should pass it. Indeed Mr. President you should be commended for taking such a stand and I venture to even comment that your stand has historical significance because for the past 10 years, the Right to information bill has been languishing in the halls of parliament and with the parliamentarians in both the Kuffuor and Atta Mills administrations exhibiting no real conviction or courage to pass it.

President Mahama gave his governments assurance and commitment to ensuring the passage of the right to information bill and the broadcasting bill. That the passage of the Freedom of Information Act remains elusive to the Ghanaian parliament even the new one that has just been sworn in and is very worrying for the anti-corruption agenda in the country. Whereas this article does not intend to indict our honorable legislators for their failure to pass this all-important bill, we at the Corruption and Fraud Audit Consortium (CAFAC) wish to carefully elucidate the very obvious advantages such a law will bring to our democratic governance dispensation and leave discerning readers to make their own conclusions.

It was President Johnson the American president who when commenting on the passage of the freedom of information act in the US said nobody should have the possibility to make secret those decisions that can be published. The Freedom of Information Act was passed in 1966 during the same period of the fight for the civil rights of our extended family who found themselves in America because of slavery. After relentless pressure from citizens and journalists, this groundbreaking legislation was finally passed and not long thereafter it made a triumphant impact during the Watergate affair leading to the resignation of a sitting president - Nixon.

So what are the benefits you and I as Ghanaians stand to gain from a Freedom of Information Law?

1) First the right of Ghanaians to know what our governments, public authorities and private corporations are doing and how public resources are allocated is an enabling power to fight corruption. This is because, corruption flourishes in darkness and secrecy so any process aimed at opening governments and government organizations to public scrutiny is very likely to advance anti-corruption efforts.

2) Second the Freedom of Information Law will promote transparency in government and that will lead directly to the reduction of corruption in government. To explain this point, we shall use the corruption equation which states that:

Corruption = Monopoly + Freedom in decision making(Discretionary Power) Transparency

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Freedom of information act is a powerful weapon


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