Afghanistans shiny new rape law

[Sir Bandelot]

"The law, passed last month, says a husband can demand sex with his wife every four days unless she is ill or would be harmed by intercourse — a clause that critics say legalizes marital rape. It also regulates when and for what reasons a wife may leave her home alone."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30223599/

This law was recently passed, by the officially recognized government of Afghanistan. That is to say, the same governbment we are defending by sending our troops, the same government we will leave in power when we leave. This is their attitude, their very idea of justice. Now ask yourself WHY, any young Canadians should die to defend these people, what exactly is being accomplished that leaves something in place, any better than the Taliban? Who is the Taliban? Who is the government? This is the people of Afghanistan!

As evidenced further in the article:

"KABUL - A group of some 1,000 Afghans swarmed a demonstration of 300 women protesting against a new conservative marriage law on Wednesday. The women were pelted with small stones as police struggled to keep the two groups apart."

This is a cultural, ideological problem, not a political or a military one!!!

[M.Dancer]

And In last months Headlines.....

Old news and the law did not pass.

The government of President Hamid Karzai has said the Shiite family law is being reviewed by the Justice Department and will not be implemented in its current form.

...thanks for coming, stay tuned for upcoming reports on the 1967 world's fair

[Sir Bandelot]

This is todays news. And this is about the cultural attitudes of people who would pass such laws, or defend them in the streets! So obfuscate away

[M.Dancer]

And this is about the cultural attitudes of people .....

Shocking that they the women would demostrate and not be rounded up to be stoned...

Why are we defending these...these...ANIMALS!!!!

[Machjo]

Yesterday I'd read in the paper that a protest in favour of the law was staged in Kabul, and not only men but even women in favour outnumbered those against.

This reminds me of some evangelical women who defend the idea that women should not be allowed to work and ought to stay at home. If even women support this law, this could put alot of pressure on Karzai as elections loom. Which will influence him more, his electorate or foreign pressure? It remains to be seen. But then ext Afghan election should be interesting.

[Machjo]

The law can be reintroduced yet, especially if there is popular local support for it even among the women.

[myata]

Yesterday I'd read in the paper that a protest in favour of the law was staged in Kabul, and not only men but even women in favour outnumbered those against.

This reminds me of some evangelical women who defend the idea that women should not be allowed to work and ought to stay at home. If even women support this law, this could put alot of pressure on Karzai as elections loom. Which will influence him more, his electorate or foreign pressure? It remains to be seen. But then ext Afghan election should be interesting.

No, but we always know best what's good for them, after all that's our main call to fame in the international affairs.

Just wait till we get out, and all those who believed and got carried away by the foreign ideals will be left to face the local music all by themselves. The cost of mindless benevolence (if that's what it is, rather than attempt at a sheer dominance).

[Machjo]

No, but we always know best what's good for them, after all that's our main call to fame in the international affairs.

Just wait till we get out, and all those who believed and got carried away by the foreign ideals will be left to face the local music all by themselves. The cost of mindless benevolence (if that's what it is, rather than attempt at a sheer dominance).

And another point worth mentioning. The first country to recognizewomen as persons under the law was New Zealand in 1893. The last place to give women the right to vote in Europe was a Swiss Canton in 1989.

These ideas need to evolve with time. Afghanistan's basic insfrastructure is practicaly non-existent yet. Do we honestly expect them to travel the same distance we did in over a hundred years in fewer than 10?

One thing at a time. Right now, whether a woman has the right to refuse sex to her husband is the least of a woman's concerns in Afghanistan right now. What about basic literacy education for all? Afghanistan will have to undergothe same process of development we did.

Heck,even in Canada today there are women who believe that women shoud not be allowed to work outside the home legally. They might be a small minority, but it does go to show that if these ideas still exist in Canada, let's not rush Afghanistan into this too quickly. This would be preferable than another 20 years of civil war over women's rights in Afghanistan.

Let it evolve.

[punked]

There was no law against martial rape in the US until 1993. Good for Clinton BTW

[Oleg Bach]

There was no law against martial rape in the US until 1993. Good for Clinton BTW

Billy Clinton suffered rape by his wife and had to grin and bear it..............................now on a serious note - I can not take this conversation seriously when the Canadian occupying military are told to turn a blind eye to the frolicing rape of Afghani male children - and at the same time the disconnected man hating Canadian social theorists get up in a tizzy..about married woman having to do their primative sexual duty in the legal confines of marriage - frankly it is no of our f***ing buisness what goes on in the bed rooms of Afghanistan..but it is our buisness what goes on under the noses of our troops on thursday nights when the sodomist tribesmen are up to no good ---- and they plug their ears as they hear the wail of a young boy being ripped apart - because these Muslims think that having sex with a woman is debasing.....once Canada attempts to curb the rape of boys then we can think about the woman - BUT - go into your typical Canadian family court and the men are sodomized by flakey feminist judges..screwed to death.

[Radsickle]

This article disturbed me. I value her opinion very much.

Irshad Manji on Tuesday

[tango]

This is wonderful. Thanks.

Tribalism triumphs in Afghanistan

IRSHAD MANJI

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

April 14, 2009 at 12:00 AM EDT

There was a time when I believed. With every fibre of my feminist Muslim being, I believed in our Afghanistan mission. No longer.

On Sunday, the Taliban assassinated another Afghan women's rights activist. It happened only days after the world learned of yet one more anti-female statute that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had signed into law. Critics accused him of caving in to warlords ahead of the coming elections. Only when Western voices amplified the protests of liberal Afghans did Mr. Karzai put the law "under review." Human-rights advocates called it a triumph.

The victory, such as it is, will be short-lived. I'm increasingly convinced that Afghanistan's problem lies deeper than a recalcitrant Taliban or a gutless central government. It's a problem so profound that for the first time I have to ask: Should our troops just get out?

[Radsickle]

Thanks for reposting that part of the link, Tango. I'm sure people would have had trouble clicking it themselves.

Edited April 18, 2009 by Radsickle

[tango]

This part is particularly interesting ...

Where the land is harsh, there's virtually no division of labour. Human survival depends on bonds of kinship, and those bonds can easily degenerate into feelings of group superiority.

Now what happens when tribes compete for superiority? You get a cycle of vendetta and countervendetta. In the end, warlords could be more legitimate than any democratically elected parliament - more legitimate because they're more authentic to the Afghan experience.

No wonder a moderate president serially submits to thugs. No wonder military might has been a feeble backwater to the tide of history. No wonder I've got a sinking feeling that our troops can't adequately help the good people of Afghanistan.

Soldiers can restore stability, but when stability means cyclical violence, I'm at a loss for what it means to win.

..

Irshad Manji is director of the Moral Courage Project, a global leadership program with New York University and the European Foundation for Democracy.

How can we know the answers?

We can't. And yet we send our soldiers there as if we know what we are doing.

[Sir Bandelot]

I'm glad to see that some people here are able to use their intelligence when they make a reply. Let the childish taunters out themselves. For the record, the measure was signed into law by Karzai last month. His comments after the general public outcry was merely to the extent that it is "under review", which means, it still maintains legal status until such a review takes place. Otherwise, why would there even be a protest about it as happened just a few days ago.

"In an interview to air on Sunday's "GPS" program, Karzai told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that he and others were unaware of the provision in the legislation, which he said "has so many articles." Karzai signed the measure into law last month.

"Now I have instructed, in consultation with clergy of the country, that the law be revised, and any article that is not in keeping with the Afghan Constitution and Islamic Sharia must be removed from this law," Karzai said.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/04/1...rzai/index.html

Now, I agree as some of you have pointed out, that our expectations of whats achievable in Afghanistan are too high. What do we do if, upon bestowing blessed democracy to this people, they willingly vote for sharia laws, inequality of the sexes, sanctioned rape and slavery? This is based on their fundamentalist muslim beliefs, ideas that existed for centuries, yes even in our culture and which we have only really come around to on our own in the past 70 or 80 years? Some might even say, we haven't achieved true equality yet in our society.

So now thinking along these lines, what is the purpose of this war? Why should Karen Blais give up her young life, when we don't have a realistic and worthwhile goal to achieve? This war is like the impulsive reaction of an angry man shouting from the podium, after September 11, who demanded it, asked others to get involved and then largely ignored it. Is it possible that our weak minded administration cannot admit the fault in their strategy, because the utter shame of bringing their stupidity to light now refuse to make the right decision? To create a facade that our troops died for a good cause?

A war can be started in a moment. Like a bad law voted in by a fool, without accountability. Easy to implement, difficult to remove.

Edited April 18, 2009 by Sir Bandelot

[Machjo]

And before anyone criticizes Shari'a, let's consider for a moment the special provisions guaranteed to Catholci schools in some Canadian provinces under our Canadian Constitution, laws that are still applicable today!

Even Canada has been officially criticized for this privilege to one religious denomination but not others by the UN twice, and still unresolved. And the provincial government of Ontario has chosen to igrnore the international community on this.

Look at the parallels. Country X has laws granting special privileges based on a particular religion. The international community criticizes country X for this, but country X chooses to ignore it to cater to their voting base. So am I referring to Canada or Afghanistan. Take your pick.

So how can the kettle be taken seriously while criticising the pot when it's black itself?

[Machjo]

If we really want to help Afghanistan, we should do so according to their own cultural context. One example could include:

Canada could offer funding for literacy education. The more Afghans are literate, the more they can read the Qur'an for themselves and judge for themselves what it says about women. I've read the Qur'an a few times, and can say that, though it does not grant women equality with men, at least not explicitely anyway, it does explicitely grant them certain minimal rights, some of which can be understood in a more progressive manner. If more Afghans could read the Qur'an for themselves, some more progressive-minded Afghans might in fact understand the Qur'an differently from the more Conservative Mullahs. The spread of literacy could thus sow the seed of a more progressive understanding of Shari'a, which could eventually lead to a reduction in the power of the 'Ulama, a power they maintain today mainly owing to the illiteracy of their followers who depend on them to explain the Qur'an.

When a person is dependent on another to interpret his religion for him, that gives that other a tremendous amount of power over him. Now multiply that by many illiterates each depending on a small number of Mullahs to interpret their religion for them.

If literacy spread, and more Afghans read the Qur'an for themselve, Afghanistan would likely start to look more like Iran, whereby though women would still not have equality with men, they'd at least have some minimal protections, some of which might be understood in a more progressive manner, as outlined in the Qur'an. Though this would still be a far cry from total equality, it would still be a step in the right direction. Consider that a few years ago even Iran had criticized the Taliban for being too extreme.

[myata]

Where the land is harsh, there's virtually no division of labour. Human survival depends on bonds of kinship, and those bonds can easily degenerate into feelings of group superiority.

Now what happens when tribes compete for superiority? You get a cycle of vendetta and countervendetta. In the end, warlords could be more legitimate than any democratically elected parliament - more legitimate because they're more authentic to the Afghan experience.

No wonder a moderate president serially submits to thugs. No wonder military might has been a feeble backwater to the tide of history. No wonder I've got a sinking feeling that our troops can't adequately help the good people of Afghanistan.

Soldiers can restore stability, but when stability means cyclical violence, I'm at a loss for what it means to win.

..

Irshad Manji is director of the Moral Courage Project, a global leadership program with New York University and the European Foundation for Democracy.

How can we know the answers?

We can't. And yet we send our soldiers there as if we know what we are doing.

The questions only trigger one answer in the minds of those who only understand one true way of life. The same one applied centuries ago, in the medieval ages. Our sophistication has increased dramatically, our methods and approaches to how to deal with those who are different from us, not one bit.