Ellen Goodman on a woman's place...
Marian
The Afghan Woman's Place Is at the Peace Conference
Ellen Goodman ~ The Boston Globe
Wednesday, November 7, 2001 BOSTON
There's a photograph on my desk that's been there for a week now. It's a
newspaper portrait of Afghan tribal leaders gathered at a Pakistan border town
to plan for a post-Taliban government.The picture shows a diverse group of
elders, colorful in their turbans and varied in the robes of their clans. The
caption that I have scrawled across the bottom reads: What's wrong with this
picture?
You see, these elders, indeed all the 1,500 leaders who assembled, didn't
include a single woman. Those who were deciding the shape of the negotiating
table
had already decided that there would be no women at the table. Have we
gotten so used to the absence of women in Afghanistan that this picture
passes without comment? Have we seen them as victims of the war for so
long that we can't envision them as builders of the peace?
Looking at this portrait, I wonder if the Taliban haven't succeeded in
erasing memory, even history - and especially the history of Afghan
women. "We see Afghanistan in rubble and say rubble is their normal
state. But it's not," says Eleanor Smeal, whose Feminist Majority
highlighted the plight of Afghan women long before this fall. "We see
women treated like nothing and we say, 'Oh, we have to start with
nothing.' But we don't."
In fact, Afghan women, who are now 54 percent of the population, gained
rights slowly during the 20th century. In 1964 they helped write their
country's first constitution. Even before the Soviet takeover, women
served in Parliament, went to universities, became doctors and teachers.
Afghanistan wasn't a showplace of feminism but it was by no means the
same country that placed women under house arrest and forced families
into exile simply to educate their daughters. Even today, Afghan women
living in the diaspora are leaders in humanitarian work and in refugee
camps.
As Jamila, a founding member of the Afghan Women's Network, told a
session of the UN Security Council on Tuesday: "I often heard that
Afghan women are not political. That peace and security is man's work. I
am here to challenge that illusion." The U.S. government has shared the
illusion that Jamila challenged. It has been more willing to condemn the
Taliban for destroying women's rights than to insist on those rights in a
post-Taliban world.
Indeed, one senior administration official told The New York Times, "We have to
be careful not to look like we are imposing our values on them."
I understand that caution. On the other hand, the United States had no
such fear of imposing its values on the Japanese when equal rights for
women were written into their postwar constitution. Even General Douglas
MacArthur, no liberated male, became convinced that if the world wanted
to end fascism, it needed to ensure rights to women.
That's where we are today. The international community has begun to
acknowledge that women's rights are universal. On Oct. 31, the United
Nations celebrated the first anniversary of a groundbreaking Security
Council resolution on women, peace and security that, among other
things, committed governments around the world to involving women in
peace negotiations.
We also have begun to see women's rights not just as a moral question
but as a strategic question.Rina Amiri, an Afghan-born associate with the Women
Waging Peace network at Harvard, may have put it best when she recited a
different history. "When it comes to war, women's issues always get put to the
side," she said. "People say, 'Let's make sure everyone puts down their arms
first, let's get food on the table first.'"
"But," she asks, "who will help build that civil society - the warlords
or the women who have been finding ways to feed their families now?"
In many ways the women of Afghanistan were reduced to anonymous symbols:
nothings. But we learn from their history and our own that peace,
security and freedom are "cultural values" that we should not be afraid
to impose.
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Baba Mung
Marian <lust...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20011107111328...@mb-df.aol.com...
> FYI... Marian
>
> The Afghan Woman's Place Is at the Peace Conference
> Ellen Goodman ~ The Boston Globe
> Wednesday, November 7, 2001 BOSTON
>
I think there are some values that might justifiiably be strongly
urged on a country by those who help to deliver it from an unjust
system but a line has to be drawn somewhere short of depriving the
citizens of that country of meaningful self-determination. I
would back the strongest pressure for the enfranchisement of women
and the equalisation in principle of opportunities. I wonder what
President Bush had in mind when he spoke of a government being
established which would "reflect our values"?. I'd hope that
establishing a full democracy ranked high on his list of jusifiable
objectives.
Baba Mung
Jan
Interesting points Baba, however, (and here I'm just musing aloud), is not one of the problems that
has been raised regarding the US world-wide the complaint that the US wants to impose its idea of
"values" on other countries?
Is Afghanistan ready for anything like a full democracy, or should they rather be established with
a system with which they are familiar, with modifications that reflect a more liberal attitude
towards the women regarding dress, education and employment, and then hope that this foundation can
be built upon.
I think we must remember that we are dealing with a very backward society when compared to anything
known in the west (our values). If that country is to have any future at all I believe one of the
first priorities would be to make it self-sufficient in food first, then gradually return the
refugees to their homes. This will take massive aid from the west to assist in re-building,
policing, government and all the infrastructures that we take for granted. Coupled with this is the
problem of unexploded ordinance and the clearing of mine-fields. These problems I fear will take
years of concerted effort.
Jan (In pondering mode)
"If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined"