Palestinian teenager Ahed Al Tamimi, 16, being hauled before an Israeli military court last month / AFP
Palestinian teenager Ahed Al Tamimi, 16, being hauled before an Israeli military court last month / AFP
Palestinian teenager Ahed Al Tamimi, 16, being hauled before an Israeli military court last month / AFP
Palestinian teenager Ahed Al Tamimi, 16, being hauled before an Israeli military court last month / AFP

This year, women became the face of resistance


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Close your eyes and picture the last 12 months, a year of tumultuous change. The image you remember might be the iconic photograph of Saffiyah Khan, the 20-year-old woman whose image confronting a member of the far-right English Defence League at a hate rally in the UK went viral.

The women's march in the United States triggered the participation of nearly 5 million women at an estimated 600 other marches worldwide. Some of those images, like those of the women who held hands in peace and unity across Westminster Bridge following the attack on the London capital, might move you.

You might see the piercing eyes of 16-year-old Ahed Al Tamimi, the young Palestinian girl kept in detention in Israeli prisons for protesting the armed soldiers outside her door. Her cousin was killed. Ahed and her mother are in jail. Her father is not allowed to even set eyes on her in the courtroom. As the soldiers occupied Tamimi's lawn, she is pictured slapping one. A prominent Israeli journalist was infuriated by a girl's resistance. Ben Caspit wrote menacingly: "in the case of the girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark, without witnesses and cameras."

The images and stories of 2017 clearly depict one thing: this was the year that women became the face of resistance.

Acts of resistance among women appeared in headlines, images, on social media, on our streets and in our conversations. They manifested among activists and politicians, on screen and in print, in our voting booths and epicentres of power and from rural villages to the biggest corporate boardrooms. Women's solidarity in resistance became a tsunami in 2017.

Female journalists lost their lives. In India, Gauri Lankesh was shot outside her home. She was critical of the country's caste system and right-wing Hindu nationalists. In Turkey, Syrian journalist and human rights activist Orouba Barakat and her daughter, Halla, were found stabbed to death. She was a member of the Syrian National Coalition and had opposed Hafez and Bashar Al Assad and was said to be investigating torture in prisons by government forces.

Political resistance prevailed from elections through to presidents. It was the black women of Alabama whose votes were a decisive force in the rejection of Republican incumbent Roy Moore. It was Carmen Yulin Cruz, the female mayor of Puerto Rico's capital, San Juan, who was a vocal critic of the US government's woefully poor response to Hurricane Maria. In Liberia, the first female elected head of state, president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is proactively stepping down after two terms in office, a noteworthy move in a region in which heads of state are usually ousted, killed or paid off.

Women have been literally been standing in the face of death and resisting it. Zahida Begum has been saving Rohingya women fleeing from murder, rape and persecution in Myanmar. Vijayalaxmi Sharma is campaigning against child marriage in Rajasthan after she saw her 14-year-old best friend die in childbirth.

The systemic oppression against women finally hit our barometers with the sweeping #MeToo anti-harassment campaign. Time magazine featured the women who triggered it as the "person of the year".

Yet this only tells us how far the resistance still needs to go. In the 90-year history of the "person of the year" category (dubbed "man of the year" until 1999), women have only featured eight times, two of them within groups. Even inanimate objects have made it to the cover twice.

It was perhaps Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Talewhose new TV adaptation became a global phenomenon that symbolised the year's resistance. It depicted every form of oppression, every potential hell, every misogynistic attitude, whether extreme or every day. Published three decades ago, it is chilling to know that it was based on events that have already happened in real life.

The protagonist, Offred, expresses her newly ignited and fearless resistance: “If you didn’t want us to be an army, you shouldn’t have given us a uniform.” This was the year of women’s solidarity, and what women wore as their uniform was the face of resistance.

UAE tour of the Netherlands

UAE squad: Rohan Mustafa (captain), Shaiman Anwar, Ghulam Shabber, Mohammed Qasim, Rameez Shahzad, Mohammed Usman, Adnan Mufti, Chirag Suri, Ahmed Raza, Imran Haider, Mohammed Naveed, Amjad Javed, Zahoor Khan, Qadeer Ahmed
Fixtures:
Monday, 1st 50-over match
Wednesday, 2nd 50-over match
Thursday, 3rd 50-over match

Meydan card

6.30pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-1 (PA) Group 1 US$65,000 (Dirt) 1,600m
7.05pm: Conditions (TB) $100,000 (Turf) 1,400m
7.40pm: UAE 2000 Guineas Trial (TB) $100,000 (D) 1,600m
8.15pm: Handicap (TB) $175,000 (T) 1,200m
8.50pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-1 (TB) Group 2 $350,000 (D) 1,600m
9.25pm: Handicap (TB) $175,000 (D) 1,900m
10pm: Handicap (TB) $135,000 (T) 1,600m

TWISTERS

Director: Lee Isaac Chung

Starring: Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos

Rating: 2.5/5

Intercontinental Cup

Namibia v UAE Saturday Sep 16-Tuesday Sep 19

Table 1 Ireland, 89 points; 2 Afghanistan, 81; 3 Netherlands, 52; 4 Papua New Guinea, 40; 5 Hong Kong, 39; 6 Scotland, 37; 7 UAE, 27; 8 Namibia, 27

How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE

When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.

Dr Afridi's warning signs of digital addiction

Spending an excessive amount of time on the phone.

Neglecting personal, social, or academic responsibilities.

Losing interest in other activities or hobbies that were once enjoyed.

Having withdrawal symptoms like feeling anxious, restless, or upset when the technology is not available.

Experiencing sleep disturbances or changes in sleep patterns.

What are the guidelines?

Under 18 months: Avoid screen time altogether, except for video chatting with family.

Aged 18-24 months: If screens are introduced, it should be high-quality content watched with a caregiver to help the child understand what they are seeing.

Aged 2-5 years: Limit to one-hour per day of high-quality programming, with co-viewing whenever possible.

Aged 6-12 years: Set consistent limits on screen time to ensure it does not interfere with sleep, physical activity, or social interactions.

Teenagers: Encourage a balanced approach – screens should not replace sleep, exercise, or face-to-face socialisation.

Source: American Paediatric Association
Notable groups (UAE time)

Jordan Spieth, Si Woo Kim, Henrik Stenson (12.47pm)

Justin Thomas, Justin Rose, Louis Oosthuizen (12.58pm)

Hideki Matsuyama, Brooks Koepka, Tommy Fleetwood (1.09pm)

Sergio Garcia, Jason Day, Zach Johnson (4.04pm)

Rickie Fowler, Paul Casey, Adam Scott (4.26pm)

Dustin Johnson, Charl Schwartzel, Rory McIlroy (5.48pm)

Zakat definitions

Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.

Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.

Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.

Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.

MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW

Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman

Director: Jesse Armstrong

Rating: 3.5/5

The specs
 
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
THE APPRENTICE

Director: Ali Abbasi

Starring: Sebastian Stan, Maria Bakalova, Jeremy Strong

Rating: 3/5