Tag Archives: United States

Understanding Syria

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An intense conflict; friends and foes fighting side-by-side
Rahman Mohamed
Updated April 9, 2017

Today when a someone hear’s “Syria” they often think of ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and Levant), or DAESH (Arabic acronym for ISIS).  What’s commonly misunderstood is the complications of the conflict in Syria.  Today conflict in Syria is made up of civil war, war against terrorism, and proxy wars that are evolving into direct war involving nations outside of Syria. Continue reading →

Northerners Laugh, Not Howl

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April Fool, a Canadian love
Rahman Mohamed

The laugh.  No historian has confirmed but it’s likely our human ancestors had a sense of humour, the ones who invented paper in China around 500 BCE but didn’t think of toilet paper for another 2300 years, 1857 CE.  It’s been reported that Chimpanzees, the ancestors of our ancestors, have been observed laughing.  If they can laugh at each other for dropping a banana it’s likely our ancestors laughed at each other for burning themselves while cooking a bunny or stubbing toes on the beta wheel.

It’s widely known many consider that “laughter is the best medicine”.  What many don’t know: Canadians are not just polite, they’re funny.  (It’s true.  They’re not always smiling at you to be polite.  In the future it might be smiling because they’re high.)

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Discrimination: Alive in 21st Century North America

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More than ever before
Rahman Mohamed
Updated 5 March 2017

Prejudice: judgement based on a single aspect; considering someone to act and behave in a certain way because of a certain quality. Discrimination: dividing a group of people into multiple groups using prejudice.  Ableism: creating an us and them using disability, a prejudgement of persons with disability second-class to “normal” people or people without a visible disability is a relatively new form of discrimination.  North America has battled discrimination since the landing of the Europeans.  Aboriginals, Indigenous persons, Inuit, and others were classified as second-class.  Although it as made strong gains in attempts to silence discrimination it is still alive in North America, both within society and among social leaders in Canada and United States. Continue reading →