Re: Taliban hatred for women?

>She speculates that because men in places like
>Afghanistan suffer
>from diminished economic expectations, they take it
>out on women.
>
>"I don't know, but I'm willing to start the dialogue
>by risking a
>speculation: Maybe part of the answer lies in the ways
>that
>globalization has posed a particular threat to men.
>Western industry
>has displaced traditional crafts--female as well as
>male--and
>large-scale, multinational-controlled agriculture has
>downgraded the
>independent farmer to the status of hired hand."
>
>This is logical because before globalization and
>colonialism when "places like Afghanistan" were so
>much better off, women were treated so well.
>
Yes that all agrees perfectly with the theory and sounds very nice and
convincing but there's sadly not a shred of evidence that women in
pre-nineteenth Afghanistan were well treated ... `tribal' women yes - but in
the city ?

It may all seem very probable to blame the status of women on colonialism
but am I the only one to recall here that Afghanistan was never colonized ?
It fought off four British attempts to colonize it, right ? Or am I the only
one to recall this ? Afghanistan was more or less a protectorate of the USSR
in ninety-fifties and -sixties, or am I the only one to recall this ?

You see this `blaming colonialism' for everything bad in South Asia, or
China, or Africa for that matter, I find in a way highly offensive towards
the societies concerned. Apparently these societies could not have had
problems and tensions of their own - everything new must have been
introduced by `colonialism'. I find this a very offensive stance, indeed, to
a country with a four-thousand year history behind it like Afghanistan. (A
history of extreme violence at that). And I can assure you: Afghanistan was
a highly unequal, tension-ridden, and yes class society, far, far before the
British (and Russians) ever came on the scene.

I'm presently everyday - which is why I write nothing on this list - reading
documents of the eighteenth century Afshar dynasty in Iran and Afghanistan
(Pashtoos - direct ancestors of the Taliban leadership) and I can assure you
that emperor Nadir Shah was no mr. Nice Guy ... And the Northern Alliance is
partly made up of Uzbeks - direct descendants of Tamerlaine ... Need I say
more - these guys were a lot of things but they were no advocates of
non-violence or equal rights for women (let alone agents of colonialism..).

And as to globalization ... seriously the only global trade pre-1976
Afghanistan was involved in I can think of was that in drugs ... and the
only multinational investor there was actually the state-oil company of the
USSR ....

The answer to the question why the Taliban hate women is simple, but to be
sure that would necessitate a lot of tiresome and even dangerous thought -
because am I the only one to recall that Afghanistan has been under
Communist rule ? And do I have to recall that the Communist Party did an
enormous effort for the alphabetization precisely of women ? And am I the
only one to recall that if the Afghan communists boasted on one thing they
precisely boasted on the improvement of the status of women ? And that if
there was one group the Communists sought support under it was precisely
under educated urban women ? And might the Taliban hatred for women not be
the result of an anti-communist backlash ?

But of course this involves tiresome and risky thinking because that might
well show that maybe Afghan Communism had its good sides too (in spite of
all the USA's attempts to bring it down) and that (and this is simply
much too big a leap for the US-media) the Taliban completely agree with the
central tenant of US-policy over the last fifty years: namely Communism as
the `Evil Empire'.

And now for some tiresome and maybe risky thought for the readers of this
list. Ponder about this: is n't it just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit arrogant and
Yankee-centric to think that any problem in the Non-west is caused by
`Western (meaning US-) Capitalism and Colonialism' ? May a society with
4000-years of history behind it, mostly consisting of endless wars and
invasions, not just have been able to produce some problems on its own ?

And as to Carlisle's posting: `Islam' oppresses women ? Well - the largest
Muslim society of the world is Indonesia and nobody ever claimed Indonesian
women are particularly oppressed. I think in fact Javanese would never have
converted en masse to Islam had Islam stuck to a very unequal position for
women. Hence, there are even cases of Muslim groups sticking to matrilineal
descent however much that may have conflicted with the Quran: the Imoro on
Madagascar and the Maconde in Mozambique as well as I believe the
South-Indian mappillas.

It really all depends on what Islam you're talking about - you see Karl, if
most western observer talk about Islam in general they really talk about the
Wahabiya sect (the kind of Islam practiced in Saudi-Arabia). It's as if you
talk about `Christianity' and then equate `Christianity' with the Latter-Day
Saints and then say `Christianity' encourages polygamy and unequal treatment
of women'.


Best wishes
R.J. Barendse