Somebody badly needs an education on the topic of women's rights in Afghanistan and burkas (scroll down to the blue text if you think you're up-to-date on this topic - note the text bolded in red by me):

Women’s rights

Taleban decrees that restricted women’s movement to the home were lifted with the inauguration of the Interim Administration. However, sexual violence by armed factions and public harassment linked to cultural beliefs continued to restrict women’s movement, expression and dress. Fears for their personal security prevented women from participating fully in civil society and denied them the opportunity to exercise their basic rights. This was heightened in areas outside Kabul, where security was administered by local and rival commanders. In Mazar-e-Sharif, rape, other sexual abuse and violence against Pashtun women were reported following the fall of the Taleban.

Repressive decrees that restricted women’s movement and participation in civil society were proclaimed in Herat, an area governed by Ismail Khan, and women’s NGOs increasingly suffered discrimination and intimidation.

Discrimination against women in the form of political intimidation was widely reported. Seven women school teachers from Pul-e-Chumri were dismissed because of their political activity during the Loya Jirga. The former Women’s Affairs Minister, Sima Samar, was intimidated for her outspokenness in the Loya Jirga. She was summoned to a Kabul court in June on apparently politically motivated blasphemy charges that were later dropped.

Violence against women by both state and non-state actors continued. The violence took the form of rape, forced marriages, kidnappings, and traditional practices discriminatory towards women in settling tribal disputes. Women were unable to seek legal redress through the judicial system, which remained ill-equipped and deeply discriminatory. The traditional jirga/shura, an informal justice system, continued to operate, often resulting in discriminatory outcomes. The majority of women in prisons were detained for violating social, behavioural and religious codes.

 

[Amnesty International, 2003 Report - Afghanistan http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/afg-summary-eng]

===

Limited women’s legal and social rights

A major step forward for women’s legal rights was achieved in March when the Afghan authorities ratified the UN Women’s Convention without reservations. However, inequality between men and women remained enshrined in national laws, particularly those relating to marriage and divorce. In certain regions of Afghanistan, women accused of adultery were routinely detained, as were those who attempted to marry a spouse of their choice.

Women’s access to healthcare, education and economic resources, particularly in rural areas, remained extremely limited, exacerbated by cultural restrictions on women’s movement and interaction with men outside their family.

Violence against women

Women and girls continued to face a high level of violence. Rape and sexual violence by members of armed factions and former combatants were reportedly common. Forced marriage, particularly of girls, domestic violence and other crimes of violence against women remained widespread and had the active support or passive complicity of state agents, armed groups, families and communities.

In some parts of the country tradition continued to be used to legitimize violent deaths of women. Women and girls alleged to have eloped or committed adultery were reportedly killed by the family. Adultery, “running away from home” and unlawful sexual activity (sexual intercourse by unmarried men and women) – known as zina crimes – remained subject to criminal prosecution. Some women accused of zina were at risk of being killed by their families if released. Women victims of rape remained at risk of prosecution for zina if they could not prove the act was against their will, and had little hope of seeing justice done. Divorce on grounds of physical violence was virtually impossible for women to obtain, even with evidence of severe domestic violence.

In many rural communities, women and girls continued to be exchanged as a mechanism for addressing community disputes or criminal issues including murder or elopement. Women and girls exchanged in this way are married to a man or boy from the victim’s family.

The criminal justice system remained too weak to offer effective protection of women’s rights to life and physical security, and itself subjected them to discrimination and abuse. Prosecutions for violence against women, and protection for women at acute risk of violence, were virtually absent. The few women who overcame powerful barriers to seek redress rarely had their complaints considered or their rights defended. No safeguards were in place to protect women from sexual abuse while in police custody and detention. There were unconfirmed reports of sexual abuse of women prisoners in official detention centres in Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul.

 

[Amnesty International, 2004 Report - Afghanistan http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/afg-summary-eng]

=====

A woman from Kabul who went to a northern province to investigate why a women's centre had been forced to close down by local strongmen, received death threats and was forced to leave the country. Many of the women who spoke to Human Rights Watch are those who tried to participate in public life, but who have now dropped out in fear and despair.

One of the most depressing of many depressing tales in the report is the story of a women's organisation that was forced to close a project in the Panjshir region because a group of mullahs objected to it. The staff tried to go on despite threats by armed men, but in the end they gave up. "Nothing worked. We felt we had lost."

 

[The Winners are Warlords, Not Women, The Guardian (via Common Dreams), 12-OCT-2004  http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1012-28.htm]

=====

I wanted to sleep outside last night, on the roof. The cold season is on the point of biting - it should already be upon us - but at the moment the weather is perfect. Sleeping outside here is remarkable: the dust is gone from the sky, there are no clouds, no smog and no light reflections. All you see are stars and the odd etoile filante (much more beautiful way of expressing it). It is so much quieter than a city in the West, but it’s never silent. The dogs are never quiet; sometimes you hear the screech of car tires; the Call to Prayer; sometimes Afghan music and drums in the distance. Very strange and very cool.

What is markedly less cool is the fact that I was not allowed to. I slept on the roof the day before yesterday. The next day some arse from a nextdoor house knocked on the door and asked that no expat ever do that again. The reason? That I might see their womenfolk. Given the somewhat tense situation at present, I will follow this request but I can barely imagine a mindset that could be that abysmally twisted. I see it every day: women cluching their burkhas under their chins just so that they can see through the gauze; women walking hand-in-hand with three-year-old children, the latter guiding the former because their mothers cannot see. Bear in mind that burkhas are nylon, and the temperature climbs to 40 degrees. I see it all the time, but it’s difficult to internalise that this is not because of some unfortunate natural affliction, not some inevitable if regrettable genetic characteristic. This is done because Afghan men think it is morally appropriate.

A month ago two of my female colleagues went to attend a meeting with Afghan farmers. They were covered, they wore the veil. Wordlessly a blanket was brought up and draped over them, to cover their bare feet. Shameless hussies. Yesterday a night letter (posters/leaflets making a political declaration) went out in the same area. Women caught outside would be shot. Women going to vote would be shot. Women going to school - shot. Eight months ago a women was killed in Charikar for walking in the bazaar without a burkha.

The funny thing is that this repression - as I understand it - comes from the absolute worship of women, from holding them in high esteem, safe and protected. So highly esteemed that it the reason for the worship is turned in on itself: importance becomes obsession, protection repression, and esteem jealousy. Now I love this country. I really do. But that is fucked up.

[Brendan's blog, 15-SEP-04 http://brendan.scottishclimbs.com/index.php?p=33]

=====

Afghan Mujahideen and Reagan

One learns something new everyday, sometimes from weblogs. Here’s an excerpt from Juan Cole about Reagan’s role in support of the Afghan Mujahideen fighting the communist Afghan government and the Soviets in the 1980s.

In fact, of course, Ronald Reagan bears substantial responsibility for September 11. He and his administration were so gung ho to roll back Communism that they funneled billions of dollars to scruffy far rightwing radical Muslim mujahidin in Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. Orrin Hatch even flew to Beijing for Reagan in 1985 to ask the Chinese to pressure Pakistan to allow the US to provide the Mujahidin with ever more sophisticated weaponry. Even the Pakistani military had initially balked at this crazy idea, knowing who the Gulbuddin Hikmatyars and Usama Bin Ladens really were (unlike clueless Reagan, who called them freedom fighters). But the US twisted the Pakistanis’ arms, and they gave in. Likewise, Reagan forced the timid Saudis to match US contributions to the Mujahidin. (And then after Sept. 11 the former Reagan officials who had twisted the arms of the Saudis, like Richard Perle, turned around and blamed Riyadh for spreading radical Muslim ideas!!) It was the CIA that first established terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, to hit the leftist government in Kabul. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the camps used by al-Qaeda had been built originally by the Reagan administration.

I didn’t know that the US government was more enthusiastic about the Mujahideen than Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.

The Christian Coalition and other rightwing religious groups supporting Reagan even had a “biblical checklist” by which they wanted all senators and congressmen to be judged. And one of the items in the “biblical checklist” was “support for the Afghan ‘freedom fighters.’ The rightwing Christians were saying in the 1980s that if you didn’t support al-Qaeda and its Mujahidin allies, you didn’t deserve to be in Congress!

Very interesting.

 

[Procrastination: Afghan Mujahideen and Reagan, ZackVision (blog), 05-NOV-03 http://www.zackvision.com/weblog/archives/entry/000539.html]

A certain moron thinks women in Afghanistan have been freed! Yes, FREED! by the mighty American liberators from wearing burkas.

Bullshit.  No offense to the well-meaning troops, but that's not going to happen by military action alone.

Burkas, khimar or hijab are coverings that may or may not be required by law; they are, however, demanded by local religious leaders under their own interpretation of Muslim religious laws (purdah).  While new laws governing Afghanistan may not require burkas to be worn by women now, burkas may still be expected by community standards and by mullahs that act as local leaders.  This is not unlike religious sects in the U.S. that demand women in their membership to refrain from makeup, shaving body hair, wear clothing that covers features (like hair or legs), avoid certain colors or closures, etc.

Frankly, the lot of women has improved only marginally since the "liberation" of Afghanistan, as noted in the Amnesty International reports for 2003 and 2004.

The same moron refused to address the strong correlation between Christian and Muslim fundamentalists' denigration of women's rights.  It is particularly ironic to note that the Taliban were encouraged not only by a conservative American president, but ultimately by Christian fundamentalists.  Thanks to their misguided or negligent efforts, we suffered a massive terrorist attack and Afghan women were repressed enormously for most of two decades.  The worst of this fundamentalist repression was not just the torture or death inflicted for failing to wear a burka, but the lack of medical care that resulted in absurd rates of fetal, infant and maternal deaths (women were forbidden to see male doctors; since there were few female doctors, women went without medical care.)

So how long a walk is it between where we are today under a faith-based presidency and wearing burkas?

And were our troops in Afghanistan to liberate women or to take out terrorists?  I'd have to say that this administration has thwarted their efforts on both counts.  I have to wonder why.

9:19:44 PM    comment []

"Because it's on, motherfuckers.

It is on."

2:22:45 PM    comment []

Rob Salkowitz' post United We Fall was inspirational, as was another party's call for a general strike.

I think we need to make it quite clear to the fear-based folks who voted for Bush that there's a lot more to fear than people outside our borders.

They should fear us.

They should be sucking up to us for all those federal dollars that blue state people pay out in the form of taxes that are siphoned off for red states' use.  Actually, we might be doing that asshat Norquist's job for him, since he wants to reduce government to a size he can drown in a bathtub.  But when those big stretches of highway go untended and the services they rely on disappear, red staters might think twice about facts. 

As in dollars and cents.

Their fear is completely misplaced, worrying more about gays and terrorists than about the facts.  This state, for example, has an enormous unguarded stretch of international border -- yet a crapload of money goes to land-locked states like Wyoming with extremely limited access to international travel for the purposes of homeland security.  This state was bankrupted by a Republican governor who, like Bush, felt the money should go back to the people -- including all the rainy day money and the seed corn, to boot.  Now there is no money for providing homeland security in the proportion needed, and red states aren't exactly coughing up the dough.  Nor can this state afford to invest in innovation that might create more jobs and boost this languishing economy.

I say fuck that.  You inland red states voters can stop siphoning off my taxes and piss up a rope.

But I think we need to go one better.  It wasn't just the fear-based freaks who voted Bush into office, or perpetuate this inequity of tax flows.

It's corporations and the media.  They had a direct hand in this, the media poisoning everything with their spin for their corporate masters; their corporate masters were more worried about their profits than about the welfare of the people who ultimately provide those profits.

I say fuck them, too. 

Ownership society my ass; cash is king.  I'm going to dump some stocks in companies that supported this junta and put my money in Euros.

I'm shutting off the television.  Think about it.  It's toxic crap they feed you, ads bombarding you to take pills for things that aren't the root problem (I'm talking about those pills for ED, dudes; it's the pump that's failing, not the hose!), telling you that you can have anything you want if you go into debt.  But look, the debt is so cheap at current interest rates! they say...reduce your payments by paying on the interest only, they say. 

Sure, that's going to establish an ownership society all right.  Liars.

Stop buying processed crap -- stuff with too much packaging.  Not only is the packaging bad for the environment, but most of the excessively packaged stuff is made outside our country for corporations that advertise this garbage on our public airwaves.  Keep our dollars here, buy from local folks. 

And when you shop, shop blue.

I'm sorry if I've ticked off my progressive friends in red states, but there you have it.  I know what you're going through if you've voted blue and live surrounded by reds.  I live in the county with the worst job creation/growth rates in the country, where a majority of local leadership are Republicans.  They're my friends and neighbors and I've had it with them and their complete self-absorbtion and self-centeredness.  I've got to change this situation somehow, and calmly discussing things using facts and figures hasn't worked.  It's time to take a stand and do something to snap them out of it. 

10:35:35 AM    comment []

If you are west of Michigan and the sun has not yet risen, RUN, don't walk, and look 35 degrees or so above the eastern horizon.

Jupiter and Venus are like two eyes peering down on us.

What do they see?

= = = = =

More on this event here.  Put 09-NOV on your calendar for stargazing as well!

7:29:23 AM    comment []