Justice
So. There was this widow in Afghanistan; she was 35, and pregnant. So, the Taliban decided the thing to do with her was first to imprison her for three days, then to whip her in public: to whip her two hundred times, in public, being pregnant and all, and a widow. And then to shoot her in the head. And then to dump her body somewhere.
Why? Well the Taliban said she’d committed adultery. The thing to do with a woman who has committed adultery is to whip her two hundred times in public, and then shoot her in the head.
The man, not so much. The man wasn’t punished. The man didn’t get so much as a tap on the hand with a pencil in private. Nothing bad happened to the man at all, while the woman was imprisoned for three days then whipped two hundred times in public and then shot in the head.
Why? Well, clearly, because men are the right kind of people, and women are the wrong kind. Clearly because men are of value and women are so much garbage. Clearly because women are so foul and disgusting and horrible that it is simply not possible to punish them harshly enough. Killing them isn’t enough – you have to flay them alive first in front of an audience, and even that isn’t really enough, but the arms get tired.
Bibi Sanubar was a widow, so she wasn’t even being unkind to her husband by having sex with a different man. It’s just that she had sex without the Taliban’s permission, and that she was a woman at the time.
I’m told by Dinesh D’Souza that this would be resisted by traditional Muslims, except that they are de-moralized by our culture wars.
But who are we to really judge them and their actions?
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We are members of the same human species as those Taliban, and I’d rather call misogynistic barbarity — wherever it occurs, and without regard to the citizenship of the perpetrators — by its true name, rather than to refer to a shovel as a terrestrial improvement implement. ( I couldn’t tell if Michael was being sarcastic).
Re: Michael De Dora
August 10, 2010 at 5:44 pm
–But who are we to really judge them and their actions?
You’ll have to explain yourself properly.
Your statement seems irrational.
I took Michael’s statement as sarcastic. As that it makes perfectly sense.
We are told a lot not to care for people because after all “it’s their culture”.
I’d say having a heart is cross-cultural.
When I hear about something like this, it makes me wonder just what the fuck we are doing in Afghanistan if such atrocities are still permitted to happen. Haven’t we deposed the Taliban? Why is this possible?
Things like this (and for that matter, Does God Hate Women? in its entirety) are so very hard for me to read and stomach. Despite being a woman from the Deep South, I can’t begin to imagine what those women in fundamentalist Muslim regions have to endure.
”… it makes me wonder just what the fuck we are doing in Afghanistan if such atrocities are still permitted to happen.”
What we (i.e. ISAF) are doing is trying to extend the central government’s control and to reduce the Taliban’s control. That’s why US and British soldiers are dying.
“Haven’t we deposed the Taliban?”
Yes, in the sense that they no longer control the country as a whole. No, in the sense that they still control parts of it.
“Why is this possible?”
Because the Taliban control parts of the country.
I think that answers your questions.
“Why is this possible?”
Because the Taliban control parts of the country.
I think it’s an oversimplification to say: Taliban Bad, Karzai et al good and imply that if the US backed regime was in charge of the whole shooting match the population (and women in particular) would be all fine and dandy.
At the risk of paraphrasing “Tom Johnson” I’d say that religion, and particularly fundamentalist variations thereof, in Afganistan and Pakistan and India is not helping, but is also more a symtom than a cause.
Certainly, arguing that the US is in the region to first and foremost bring democracy and human rights is fanciful. Human rights and democracy matter just about as far as US interests allow them. Yes, I have just finished reading some Tariq Ali.
The woman, Sanum Gul (also reported as Bibi Sanubar by Dawn — whose age was given as both 35 and 47 in various reports ), was killed in Badghis province in western Afghanistan. Whether the woman was 35 or 47 is now irrelevant. The reality is, that she is dead. Killed by those 7Th Century antediluvian wannabe monsters, who see women nothing more than dirt. To be treated as mere nonentities and for them to decide their life-force. What happened to the man with whom she was allegedly having relations? I expect, nothing! The audience, in all probability, were left with no choice but to be present, unless of course they too were so brainwashed that they derived voyeuristic satisfaction from the scandalous monstrous spectacle. Justice should be seen to be done for the death of the woman. Persons’ responsible for unmercifully beating and pulling the trigger should be held accountable. The full rigour of the law in Badghis province in western Afghanistan, irrespective of the fierce fighting within that region with the Taleban, should be seen to flush out the perpetrators. The cowardly misogynistic women haters cannot be seen to win the fight on the murder of a defenceless pregnant woman. Women get such a raw deal with these Islamic fundamentalists. If they are not shooting them, they are stoning them to death.
Sarah McKenzie points out in link to last post.
The women, on the other hand, thank God every morning for “making me according to Thy will.
De Dora
I know the question is rhetorical and sarcasm, but to answer it:
We are people who respect human rights. Not first world western nation rights, but human rights.
That woman was a human being, I have sincere doubts on the Taliban.
David M:
I don’t think anybody imagines that everything would be ‘ fine and dandy’ if the Taliban were beaten and Karzai et al in control of the whole country. However, it is clear that thngs would be rather better. Who would you rather live under? Karzai et al or the Taliban?
What US motivation is is not particularly important. What matters is that they are fighting against the Taliban, who are the scum of the earth.
Michael De Dora. I suppose your remark is supposed to be sacrcasm, but it doesn’t quite come across that way, so I think you really should add a bit of depth to what you said, when you wrote this:
Since this is a point of view that is taken in all seriousness by some people, you really do need to add more, perhaps going on to explain why we have a right to judge other people and their actions, especially when their actions are so morally repugnant as the one’s reported here. Perhaps if you had a made ‘a modest proposal’ out of it, to show just how repugnant it really is, it would be different. But there are still some people who believe that we mere Westerners have no right intervening in what happens to be, from their point of view, an intracultural matter in which we are not and should not be involved. We cannot simply be content with the claim that they arrange things differently there.
If you do a check on this story in Google news you get a bewildering array of contradicting facts.
For instance, that the man wasn’t punished – some stories claim that he was also whipped 200 times and is still in Taliban custody, whereas a previous version (which I read last night) said that he had escaped.
That this was carried out by the Taliban – well some reports have them boasting about executing this woman others have them denying any involvement.
That the Taliban did this seems to be mostly supported by the fact that they control the whole area – but the body was dumped in an area under government control (which is never detailed).
She was pregnant – except in those stories where they were punishing her for killing her newborn to hide the affair.
A lot of stories seem to be combining comments from multiple sources without clear attribution (the Provincial Police, a spokesman for the Provincial Governor, the District Governor), often in the same paragraph.
Oh and several local officials, while condemning the murder, would still have seen her prosecuted and punished legally for her ‘crime’.
That that a woman was murdered by misogynists in Afghanistan on Sunday seems to be about the only agreed upon piece of information.
What Mujahadeen motivation is is not particularly important. What matters is that they are fighting against the commies, who are the scum of the earth.
…and so it goes.
Yes, of course the man wasn’t punished. Poor man, being lured by a WOMAN. We all know it’s women’s fault when men have sex with them. That’s why they should be covered head to toe in billowing fabric, to protect men from their evil seduction, all the while telling women it’s for their own protection.
You know, sometimes I forget that I’m a woman. I tend to think of myself as a person . . . then people say stuff like “ha you completely wiped the floor with him in that argument, it was great to see him beaten by a girl” and I’m reminded, no, I’m not quite a person yet. Not quite. I can never get used to that, it’s always a bit of a shock, like catching an unexpected glimpse of oneself in a mirror.
Religion = Misogyny.
That’s it, in a nutshell.
I’m a guy and in the west but I get a little upset when I hear about our relatively slight traditions towards women – women are “given away” in marriage (because they’re owned by their fathers until the groom can take over), lose their name and used to even lose their first name (Mrs Joe Blow). This has fortunately become largely symbolic (but what an ugly symbol) and we sometimes forget about them till these examples slap us in the face and remind us just what a despicable belief women-as-property really is.
And while I assume DeDora is joking (he is joking, right? I wish it was anyone but DeDora saying it as it doesn’t seem far from something he might say in all seriousness), there really are people who think we should preserve different cultural “traditions” like this one. Wouldn’t want to spoil such beautiful, long-lasting symbols with our imperialist western culture, would we?
AJ:
I take it you would like the Taliban to be defeated but only by people whose motives you approve of. And if no such people are prepared to take on the job, that’s presumably just hard luck for the Afghans.
This is one of those things that makes me wish that we(“the West” I suppose, but really anyone) could go into places like this and say “you don’t get to do this any more. Ever again. To anyone.” I know that “the West” is currently there, but seems powerless to stop this. I also wonder how much local support the Taliban has, in that they’re upholding “traditional values”. I can’t imagine that they are operating in a complete vacuum without some supporters in the populace. I’d like to send them all to another planet. It makes me sick. Fuck cultural sensitivity if your culture does this.
Not just “the west,” of course – plenty of people in Afghanistan hate this kind of thing too. It’s important always to keep a firm grip on that thought. Warren Jeffs doesn’t stand for the US as a whole, and Talibanism doesn’t represent all of Afghanistan. Ultimately it’s not so much a fight between locals and outsiders as a fight between liberalism and reactionary misogyny.
BobNo, I should like for all the people of Afghanistan (and beyond) to live in a free society where the rights of all are respected.I’m utterly fucked when it comes to figuring out how the hell to achieve that, but I really doubt that supporting the Islamic government led by Karzai, et al (“et al” indeed) is the way to go about it. You apparently have rather fewer doubts and I envy you that. Please answer me this – Say we’ve defeated the Taliban, do you really think this type of state sanctioned crime against women is going to stop? What about when western troops leave the country?The story seems designed to make us angry more than to inform (it has certainly made me angry) and the implicit solution seems straightforward – kill more Taliban and things like this won’t happen. But how many do we have to kill and why after nine years haven’t we killed enough to stop this happening already?Answers on a postcard please, because I don’t have any.
Well that serves me right for not using preview.
I don’t think Afghanistan would be a great place if the Taliban were defeated, but I do think that it would be a better place than if the Taliban were to return to power. At present many women are able to work outside the home and many girls are able to go to school. That will continue if he Taliban are defeated. It will stop if the Taliban return to power.
I see people have been Poe’d by Michael De Dora- just goes to show I guess. But the Taliban aren’t true muslims right?
Afghanistan tried valiantly on its own, and its people are still trying. Afghani governments from the early 20th century up to the civil war of the seventies (which brought the Soviet intervention) tried all kinds of progressive measures, some gradual, some abrupt; some more successful than others. If you look at pictures of Afghani cities and towns before the eighties, you will see women in regular clothes going to work as lawyers, doctors, government ministers.
Let it not be forgotten that the Taliban takeover and persistence is blowback from US support of the anti-Soviet mujahedeen, who never hid their fundamentalism including the de facto definition of women as subhuman. When the US government gave them Stinger missiles, women’s rights were as much on the American agenda as they are now that Karzai prepares to kiss up to the Taliban.
Also, if you think “it can’t happen here”, think again. In Greece, we woke up one fine morning to martial music and political/civil rights suspended (including many women’s hard-won rights). Read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The Teabaggers are would-be Taliban.
AJ, the question of why it has taken so long, and why there has been such little success can be answered in one word: Iraq. The Taliban had plenty of time to regroup because attention and troops were diverted to Iraq. Had there been a proper commitment to solving the problems of Afghanistan then the situation would probably be much better now. That isn’t guaranteed, obviously, but it was clear from the beginning that diverting resources away would cause many of the massive problems that followed.
To AJ and Psimon, try a different word: Saud. The money for the madrassas and the guns has been coming from Saudi Arabia (which also militarizes the diaspora Moslem communities) and a good deal of the training came from Pakistan, to whom fundamentalist Islam seemed a lesser danger than India — till recently, when it started destabilizing them as well. The Pakistani ISI is still helping or winking at its own officers’ involvement in this, while receiving enormous US funding. Our taxes at work.
I hope I’m forgiven this oversimplification: all of it, the misogyny, whether religiously motivated or not, war, imperialism—all of it stems from human ignorance. In “western cultures,” of course, we have plenty of ignorance still to combat, but we might allow ourselves to say that some levels of ignorance are worse than others, no? And that some tyrannies are easier to combat than others. While many may continue to wring their hands over western guilt (sometimes deservedly so) and argue for a “necessary” tolerance for what other cultures sanction or permit which is no longer officially sanctioned or permitted by our own, people die, people suffer, people go on being ignorant. We might be glad that more Afghan school girls are reportedly attending school despite the threat of acid in their faces, but it is little consolation when we’re confronted (even at a distance) by such ignorance as that which compels the Taliban, day after day, to do what they do. They see themselves as dispensing justice; we know it’s not. How we know that can sometimes be difficult to explain among ourselves, much less to those who see no need to defend their definition of justice.
It’s bad enough to hear about this in Afghanistan. Having it increasingly spread to Western nations makes the whole picture even more bleak — the cancer isn’t an isolated spot; rather, it’s spreading. It seems to me there is something in Islam that prevents it from “playing nice” with any other religion, culture, set of laws, or way of life — some aspects at least demand total dominance or submission, and won’t accept co-existence. Sharia Law doesn’t stop in Iran and Afghanistan; it’s entrenched in parts of London, Vienna, Dearborn, MI. Until we stop handling it with kid gloves, it’ll keep spreading.
@Athena
American policy towards Pakistan is right up there with Sarah Palin for president – Things that exist but don’t make any sense.
But then Im biased. Im also in the unfortunate position of being an Indian in America who pays taxes which are used indirectly in causes that harm India.
Is de Dora being satirical or maybe just “philosophical” ?
If I could do so, the beast in me would gladly let my moral outrage justify giving those Taliban buggers the same treatment (and probably without bothering to find out whether it really happened exactly as described). But I can’t. And neither can anyone else at this point – at least not without creating a large amount of “collateral damage”.
The real question for me is how can we bring such horrors to an end as soon as possible. And it is not clear to me that “defeating the Taliban” by fighting (or supporting) a military action is the most effective path to that end. Nor, despite my admiration for Greg Mortenson, is it quite obvious that sending girls to schools where they may just end up getting blown up or doused in acid will do the job either.
Of course giving up and ignoring it won’t solve the problem (though it might in fact speed up the solution by clearing the field for someone who is in a position to do so). But rather than just stirring up unresolvable anger, please use your platform to engage in a real search for an effective and humane solution. Thank you.