Majority of women if Afgan jails there for being victims of rape

[Monkeytrousers]

Glad the mainstream press have finally picked up on this

'The West' obviously have had a huge role to play in the ascendence of the Taliban Regime and what has followed. That is completely different from saying that The West is therefore responsible for the interpretation of Islam (and the additional complex soup of tribal, cultural, patriarchal and other factors) that has led to atrocities such as the jailing of raped women.

There are extreme Islamic societies that have managed this without the interference of other super-powers - and Islamic societies that have managed not to resort to such measures.

In any case, the origins of a situation shouldn't mean that it's victims remain unheard and unaidd, should it?

That reminds me MB, I was reading some ethnoghraphic studies of primitive societies - the kind where Margaret Mead would announce to the world that rape didn't exist in.

There were many of them, not just the ones Mead studies, but in all of them there was one common denominator - it was the males who told the westerners studying them that rape did not exist. In one case one said (and i have to paraphrase as it's from memoty) - 'rape does not exist because our women never resist.

In other societies it was a rite of pasage for a young man to ambush a woman (who was usually married) when she was carrying a load of sticks on her back - all the better as when she was knocked over, she couldn't get up - and have sex with her in this prone position while she was powerless to do anything about it.

Astonishingly, the ethnographers did not count this as rape.

I am just as outraged and concerned - what human being would not be after reading that
article! - but I take issue with the notion that this a 'Muslim state thing'.

MT, nothing wrong with evolving and changing ones mind
but you do become a hypocrite when you completely ignore/erase
the past from your analysis because it now does not fit into your latest world view.

The degree of depravity and barbarism that we have witnessed
and are still witnessing in Afghanistan is related to the
fact that for the past 3 decades this country has been in a state
of turmoil.

That turmoil was a direct result of US/Western policies.

Like I said, just because you declare outrage for one specific event - which this article pertains to and which, I think you would agree that the people focuing on this particular issue do need to take issue with the degree of official Islamic participation - doesn't mean you sanction those that aren't mentioned.

Just because the focus is on one issue - the others need not be neglcted, just tackled one at a time, if any justice is to be done with any of them.

And further, to deny it is an Islamic state issue is fallacious. You would not get Muslim feminists even attempting to say such a thing.

This is not to say that oppressive patriarchies comes in different shapes and sizes in other cultures and societies, but to deny that these have a definite self identity and that this identify is very important to the people sanctioning the regimes, is simply to miss a major part of the issue.

Daddy J - fab posts! In total agreement with you!

"the people who did the bankrolling
and benefited from the results (crushing defeat of the Soviets) are now being outraged and blaming the aftermath on Islam"

Ahem. I didn't do any bankrolling of the Taliban, thank you, I was always opposed to them. I wasn't consulted when my state decided where to deploy its funds.

And I haven't been a major beneficiary of the collapse of the Soviet Union either. I'd be interested to know in what way you think the average person in the West has benefited from its collapse. Certainly not economically, in terms of human rights, or in the protection of our health systems or welfare states.

And I'm outraged by this. Incredible that anyone can argue that it's unreasonable to be outraged, actually. What should our reaction be? Stoic acceptance?

I think our collective guilt is supposed to render us apathetic, hopefully apolitical and so more easily manipulated to the designs of any would be totalitarian tyrant, such as George Galloway, (in his widest dreams)..

Either that or just be generally outraged, set up a stall in various town centres shouting about how outraged we are, sign petitions to this effect and heckle any and all politician whilst doing bugger all to intelligently engage with the issue and maybe even try to help the human individuals at the centre of the issues. The ideology comes before the people. Which actually works in service to the above anyway. It is the structure of organisations like the socialist worker.

i agree wityh that mt.
got us nicely under control havnt they, with a smidgen of information here, a petition and some leaflets there... and all the while our energies are nicely diverted into culdesacs and the horror continues for millions of individual himan beings around the world.
applies to all these issues, doesnt it.
its v frustrating if you do actually care - and lets face it, youd have to have a pretty hard heart not to, coz theres seemingly nothing 'we' as individuals can actually DO about things we dont like in the world.
which is nice and conveneient for nasty people
(and by nasty people, i do indeed include those who would F with regimes of far away places in order to serve their own agendas)

Please be outraged! How can anyone not be outraged?!

But please know your own history and show some humility.

I very specifically take issue with the 'Muslim state' comment, MT.
Muslim refers to someone whose faith is Islam.
You are tarring more than 1 billion people with the same brush.
It's not accurate, not fair and not helpful.

'Islamist' I would agree with but how about 'Fundamentalist'?
That's a term that we can all agree on - Christian, Muslim, Jew and Atheist.
It's not political correctness to use language that unites us,
that allows us to reach across racial/religious/gender divides.

LittleBella, I presume you live in Western Europe.
Are you sure the demise of the Soviet Union had no particularly positive impact on your life?
Not having nuclear missiles pointed at your home town, for example, surely that's a benefit?
If you are genuinely interested in finding out what you missed out on by being outside the Soviet sphere,
find someone from Eastern European and ask them all about the old days.

thank you dittany

daddyJ - i agree with every word.

Why would you assume I haven't already asked DaddyJ or indeed haven't visited in the past?

I don't feel the benefit of the nuclear weapons not being targeted at me because I don't believe they were ever going to use them. Only one country in the world has a record of using nuclear weapons, and it's not Russia.

So the benefits to western Europeans I still feel are unclear. Though I don't dispute that in the case of Eastern and Central Europeans, the benefits have been far more unambiguously positive.

And MT didn't say Muslims, she said muslim states. Helluva difference.

And western Europeans weren't in the soviet sphere, btw.

Well go ahead and take offence DJ. That is your right. I take no offence at your offence as it is your right to be offended if that?s what takes your fancy.

But I will not be drawn into a hysterical argument that is more projection than anything I have already stated here. I have defined my terms very specifically and I think in extremely measured terms. At the risk of sounding very serious and pompous, I will define them more here and hopefully will never have to do so again:

I said Muslim state not simply ?Muslims?. That puts it into a specific official and sanctioned realm of society, not general society, and cannot on any way, in good faith at least, be misinterpreted as ?You are tarring more than 1 billion people with the same brush.? To paraphrase Martin Amis when charged with the same crime against PCness, you must do me the favour of assuming that I am not a maniac. No really.

If a confusion can arise between the terms ?Muslim State??and the more general ?muslims? then Afghanistan?s President, Hamid Karzai himself is guilty of ?what? racism?.. as he states in the article, "In Afghanistan whether it is forced or not forced it is a crime because the Islamic rules say that it is.? Those are his words, not mine. You might have a broader agenda but I choose my words very carefully. Especially on this issue.

My agenda was to let people to know this is happeing, something I have known for a long time but the western press have not deemed newsworthy. Maybe we have Gordon Brown?s low profile premiership to thank for this.

If you want to show humility (an ironic thing to thing to be asking a woman to do for fear of criticiaing the official practice of Islam (or Islamism) towards rape victims - for that is what I am doing as is my perfectly legitimate right) then do so to the millionso of women who are terroried daily in such a regime (and men too actually) ? My beef is against ideolgies, not people.

I will not rise to the tacit charge of racism for doing no more than debating and asking probing questions about the moral legitimacy of a regime that treats it?s female (non) citizens so abhorently. I make absolutly no apology for that. It is my right to ask questions, criticise and agitate and to do so freely and not without much forethought and engagement on the issue. If you want to level a charge of ignorance and racism at someone, you are in the wrong place to do so here.

While I am a liberal, I am no slave to political correctness, which in many quarters is becoming all that Orwell warned it might. You will have to take my word that I am versed enough in the issue and know the rules well enough to play around with them when the situation demands.

So with my free mind I have to admit I am not sure that Ismalist or fundamentalist does suffice. It is a complex issue that needs much more study on my part. Is to admit so racist? Of course it isn?t.

But some people find even the flavour of my argments so offesnive they will jump to the play the racist card when no such foul play has happened. To offend an individuals sensibilites is not to offend a whole race/creed/religion/sex (I won?t quibble that you cannot be technically racist against religions, it is the same ism with a different appelation)

oh and by the way, I do not discriminate between oppressive regimes in my feminist studies, I examine all areas of female oppresion and actually specialise in male perspective bias in rape prosecution policy in the west.

So acuse me, in your ignorance, of unfairly tarnishing Islam in ignornace of my own history. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Well go ahead and take offence DJ. That is your right. I take no offence at your offence as it is your right to be offended if that?s what takes your fancy.

But I will not be drawn into a hysterical argument that is more projection than anything I have already stated here. I have defined my terms very specifically and I think in extremely measured terms. At the risk of sounding very serious and pompous, I will define them more here and hopefully will never have to do so again:

I said Muslim state not simply ?Muslims?. That puts it into a specific official and sanctioned realm of society, not general society, and cannot on any way, in good faith at least, be misinterpreted as ?You are tarring more than 1 billion people with the same brush.? To paraphrase Martin Amis when charged with the same crime against PCness, you must do me the favour of assuming that I am not a maniac. No really.

If a confusion can arise between the terms ?Muslim State??and the more general ?muslims? then Afghanistan?s President, Hamid Karzai himself is guilty of ?what? racism?.. as he states in the article, "In Afghanistan whether it is forced or not forced it is a crime because the Islamic rules say that it is.? Those are his words, not mine. You might have a broader agenda but I choose my words very carefully. Especially on this issue.

My agenda was to let people to know this is happeing, something I have known for a long time but the western press have not deemed newsworthy. Maybe we have Gordon Brown?s low profile premiership to thank for this.

If you want to show humility (an ironic thing to thing to be asking a woman to do for fear of criticiaing the official practice of Islam (or Islamism) towards rape victims - for that is what I am doing as is my perfectly legitimate right) then do so to the millionso of women who are terroried daily in such a regime (and men too actually) ? My beef is against ideolgies, not people.

I will not rise to the tacit charge of racism for doing no more than debating and asking probing questions about the moral legitimacy of a regime that treats it?s female (non) citizens so abhorently. I make absolutly no apology for that. It is my right to ask questions, criticise and agitate and to do so freely and not without much forethought and engagement on the issue. If you want to level a charge of ignorance and racism at someone, you are in the wrong place to do so here.

While I am a liberal, I am no slave to political correctness, which in many quarters is becoming all that Orwell warned it might. You will have to take my word that I am versed enough in the issue and know the rules well enough to play around with them when the situation demands.

So with my free mind I have to admit I am not sure that Ismalist or fundamentalist does suffice. It is a complex issue that needs much more study on my part. Is to admit so racist? Of course it isn?t.

But some people find even the flavour of my argments so offesnive they will jump to the play the racist card when no such foul play has happened. To offend an individuals sensibilites is not to offend a whole race/creed/religion/sex (I won?t quibble that you cannot be technically racist against religions, it is the same ism with a different appelation)

oh and by the way, I do not discriminate between oppressive regimes in my feminist studies, I examine all areas of female oppresion and actually specialise in male perspective bias in rape prosecution policy in the west.

So acuse me, in your ignorance, of unfairly tarnishing Islam in ignornace of my own history. Nothing could be further from the truth.

oh crap!

LittleBella, you clearly didn't talk to any Hungarians for Czechs, did you?
They would have thoroughly disabused you of the idea that the Soviets are as peaceloving as you think.
Funny enough, only last week a former high-ranking Russian general
threatened Poland with a nuclear attack.

Right, let's peruse MT's tomes.

I am henceforth posting in txt speak

And from where do the Taliban get the majority of their arms? The West? Or another Muslim state?

Re the cold war, I think a metaanalysis might help...

but on second thoughts fook it

HF - the arms industry is about as nebulous ans it gets I'm afriad. It is a myth though that Iraq got most of it's arms from the UK and US - it was France actually. Not that it matters in a hill of beans. The arms industry is an essencial part of the political process - as well as economic. People are warlike who ever they are. There will always been need for defences and shows of force.

tho it might now ironically be russia - but it's only worth mentioning as an ironic aside