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

[Monkeytrousers]

Glad the mainstream press have finally picked up on this

I will leave the ignorant generalisations to you, Cote. You are so much better at them than I.

And if you insist on indulging in this folly, please start a new thread and stop hyjacking this one.

MB, Cote see's offence in everyuthing I say. As with DJ, she is entitled to that offence and I am happy for her to take it. It's her right. But her offence doe snot equate to the offence of the whole muslim world, whether she likes it or not.

I stand my ground. Any amount of flapping by her or DJ will not change that.

monkeytrousers - Until you bring yourself to acknowledge that this post...:

By Monkeytrousers on Tue 19-Aug-08 13:51:27
That was where I was first alerted to it MB. It is true of all Muslim states sadly.

... is a gross and false generalization, I am sorry to say you do not have a place in this debate.

Female rape victims are not jailed in all Muslim states, only in some of them.

I can accept that it was an honest mistake, but I cannot understand your insistence on not owning up to it. There is no glory in "standing your ground" when it has long crumbled under your feet.

donnie - I am fascinated by President Hamid Karzai and his rise to the presidency of Afghanistan.

Those of us who were following these issues way before 9/11 will remember that he was actually one of the initial supporters of the Taliban. Then he works for some American consultancy companies, namely on some oil projects involving Afghanistan, and when the time comes for putting a friendly guy in power, he is first on the list.

Which is all well and good. Someone has to be president, and given that US holds all the strings, nothing wrong with having a well-connected Afghan president who is also fluent in English, educated in Western ways, and friendly to Western interests.

I understand the occasional backtalk to US ("You killed our civilians and we're not happy" etc), which is to be expected, as he is trying to show he is not a US puppet.
What I find strange is the continued medieval practices such as mentioned in OP and the increased heroin production (it was very low during Taliban rule). Does he not have the resources for change? Are Afghan people not interested in the said change?

The stuggles of women are however and I will not qualify anything I have said (or not said in this case) after the fact to satify your sensibilites or ego. Live with it. Take offence. I do not care. The thread is about these women, not you.

You were wrong re "All Muslim states" post of Tue 19-Aug-08 13:51:27.

Admit it.

I would have thought that the term 'muslim state' implies a religious state as opposed to a secular one, e.g. Turkey is a muslim country but a secular state. The states where religion dominates government tend not to be too female friendly.

Only to you Cote. This is getting childish now.

combustiblelemon - There are quite a few states that are Islamic, and then quite a few more that state Islam as their state religion.

Holding rape victims responsible for what happens to them ('seduction', 'adultery', etc) and jailing them for this does not happen in all countries in either category.

As monkeytrousers knows, because we went through all this before, I know a bit about Islam and Muslim countries because I was born a Muslim in one of them. I am an atheist cum agnostic who never even believed in God, but still, this kind of ignorant generalization gets on my nerves.

As does intellectual dishonesty. Why can't monkeytrousers admit she was wrong in saying raped women are jailed in all Muslim states? Bizarre.

Okay, Cote - list me the Islamic states, specificly Islamic states, that do not hold sanctions against rape victims. I will be checking them, so try to be patient with any responses. This will be a journey of enlightenment for us both perhaps.

And just to get things in perspective in this attempted charater assassination, I refer you to an eariler post of mine, in response to a poster asserting that "they are animals"

"By Monkeytrousers on Tue 19-Aug-08 18:17:38:

Dunno about 'they' Donna, it's a bit neblous and these thinsg have a tendency to blow up if they dont come with a caveat - the people who carried out the judgement, the people who sanction it, the people in power who do nothing to stop it, yes. IMO of course."

I'm glad you and DJ didn't round on this poster. You gave her the benefit of the doubt when responding to a horrifying piece.

So, I await news from you of the liberal sharia edict tyhat allows women the justice of putting their offence first when raped and not the offense to family honour and male relatives.

Do your own research.

"List me Islamic states...", indeed

You are the one accusing me of being ignorant and racist. The onus is on you to prove that. If you can't or even simply don' want to, then just shut up and stop hyjacking the thread with this pseudo racism nonsense.

I haven't called you 'racist'.

I have said that you don't know much about Islam in general and yet make sweeping generalizations based on several books you have read.

Sorry, but I am not about to "shut up" so you can continue to sprout your half-baked generalizations unchallenged. Tough for you.

Have you come to accept yet that you were wrong to claim female genital mutilation to be a Muslim tradition?

Cote - re: kharzai. He was indeed involved in some nice little oil earners involving the US back in the day and hence he is a good person for hte US to install as leader. My impression of him, gained through reading various articles and so on, is that he is probably quite corrupt and also finds it hard to clamp down on the tribalism and tribal practices which are so entrenched in Afghanistan - the treatment of women being among these practices ( to a certain extent - they became far worse under Taleban), such as marrying them off at age 9 etc.

I think he is in a very difficult position but that he ultimately has next to no real power or influence as he is seen by both his own kinsmen and also the US as an instrument of America. I feel it is only a matter of time before he is assassinated.

According to this article I mentioned in my earlier post, one of Kharzai's brothers has been strongly implicated in large scale heroin dealing but the Americans don't want to get him as then what would Kharzai do? it is a corrupt, terrible mess and as usual the ordinalry people suffer the most.

BTW Monkeytrousers - you did indeed say "It is true of all muslim states sadly"- that is the comment which is the bone of contention here. Is it though? I think you need to prove your point as it strikes me as a dangerous generalisation, plus Muslim countries and Islamic regimes are not at all the same thing, as I and other posters have already pointed out.

and regarding the heroin trade itself - it is just too bloody lucrative. One year the Allied forces actually paid the Afghan farmers for permission to destroy their poppy crops; the result? they grew even bigger crops the following year in the expectation of more money! initially- so it goes - the Taleban were against the heroin trade but is seems now they are using it to pay for arms and bribes. Please do read the article - I cant do links but it was in last saturday's weekend mag (Guardian), or google it as 'flower power declan walsh' and it will come up. Read it and weep.

Here is a cursery search on Google with the search words rape+victim+jail

If you find a state other than Islamic ones who jail rape victims, let me know.

Islam will never discover its moderate face, and inforce that in its dealings with women (and men) across the globe, if such atriocites are not revealed and discussed. I have no problem having a blunt exchance of opinion, but I refuse to get pulled into an unfalsifiable argument, such as you are insisting upon.

Sorry, donnie, was away on business but I had posted the Wiki link already.

I am happy to summarise because if we are raising awareness for the plight of
Afghani women we definitely need to understand their culture, their history and
how things got this bad.

I don't know about Afghan men being angels but in the late Seventies
quite a few of them were advanced enough (despite being Muslims!)
to try and implement policies that were progressive
with regard to women's rights and their status within society.

However, this did not go down well with other Afghani men who wanted women to know their place.

Guess which ones the West supported with advanced weapons, training and military advice?

The latter group, donnie. The mudjaheddin, the fundamentalists, the same bastards who
are now sticking rape victims into prison.

No, I don't hold the West responsible but given the West's role in the depressing rise
of Afghani fundamentalism I think the implication that this is a 'Muslim state' thing
is highly inaccurate and, coming from a Westerner, somewhat hypocritical.

OK, Monkeytrousers, so this is about Islam and when you said 'Muslim states'
you did mean essentially any state with a Muslim majority.

Let me dwell on that and settle dd first.

yes I agree with you on that daddyj - but you seemed earlier to be saying that before the rise of fundamentalism it was some kind of paradise. It is certainly true that the US armed the Mujahedin against the Russians in the 80s. The Taleban emerged from the mujehedin because it became so fragmented that it was impossible to know who was fighting against who any more.What I find so hypocritical and unpalatable is that the west then left Afghanistan alone once the soviets withdrew and allowed the Taleban to crucify the nation unchecked. It was only after 9/11 they decided to take action against their old pal OBL.

However you cannot accuse America of being responsible for the existence of Islamic fundamentalists: they thought that up for themselves IMO.

Curiously, the taleban has reneged on many of its so called moral standards and now happily engages in the heroin trade - if Declan Walsh is to be believed ( and I feel he is).

No DJ, I meant a Muslim or Islamic State under a particular theocratic form of government, in this case Islamic government and all that entails within the judiciary and practice of Sharia law.

You are trying to play the odds I know. How can I say that all Muslim states have policies (nebulous as it is pertaining to Quran, Hadith, indigenous culture and many more elements) of punishing rape victims - be that from insisting that the women recants the claim as 'zena' cannot be proven (not without enough male witnesses anyway)so the woman can maintain the honour of her family and even Islam at large by retracting her 'vengeful' claim and let god punish her attacker in the next life, even though her status and prospects in marriage will plummet after such an event; to floggings and imprisonment of her and 'unclaimed' offspring, as the husband will very often abandon her and the children after a rape occurs, (though this is not simply a phenomenon in Islam, it's still quite common here, though when those marriages fail a woman can escape the shame of her past and rebuild) and at it's very worst honour killings ? what are the odds that I could say all Islamic states who prosecute rape under Sharia do this??You may think it unlikely, but that does not make me wrong nor ignorant.

I am still backing my horse, but will welcome the time when I can recant, for the sake of these women, believe me, but I will not be satisfying the PC thirst for moral or cultural relativism here.

I would like to know whether there are Muslim States (a theocratic government based in Islam - not a country where the inhabitants are largely muslims) which do not punish the victims of rape.

I simply don't know.

So Cote, or anyone, ??

"If you find a state other than Islamic ones who jail rape victims, let me know" is a slightly different question...

Below are "Muslim states" - i.e. countries were Islam is the state religion (as opposed to secular countries like Turkey where state has no religion despite Muslim majority in country)

Algeria
Bangladesh
Egypt
Iraq
Kuwait
Libya
Malaysia
Maldives
Morocco
Qatar
Tunisia
United Arab Emirates

Now that I gave her the list she asked for, I assume monkeytrousers can now put her Googling skills to good use and find out which of the above do not prosecute rape victims. (I'm fairly sure Algeria and Morocco don't, for example, but don't have the time to find links as I have to pack for trip tomorrow. And anyway it is for the person who claimed "all Muslim states" prosecute rape victims to prove her statement.)

There are also Islamic states like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, etc but that is not the same thing as "all Muslim states".

Why, when I am very specific, by demand do the same people who then demanded that disregard half of what I say I wonder?

Oh how many more times. You will not have your pound of flesh. Deal with it.

Some people will have seen the article posted and have maybe seen for the first time an example of true female oppression and misogyny, of the kind they had never imagined existed. That?s my job done. If some will be motivate to educate themselves on the issue, and do so without politically correct blinkers, then even better, for western feminism is fast running itself to standstill up that blind alley.

You will have to suffice with agreeing to disagree. If you want to call me names and cast aspersions on my character (which I suspect you won?t be able to resist) go ahead, it?s really no skin off my nose. Just remember how fortunate you are to have an educated voice, and the right to assert that voice, on here, never mind that we disagree. That?s neither here not there.