Killings prompt call for protection of Afghan women

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Killings prompt call for protection of Afghan women
Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:15AM EDT

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) - The killings of two female journalists
and two school girls in Afghanistan prompted a government
ministry on Wednesday to call on authorities to provide
security for women in schools and at their workplace.

No one has claimed responsibility for the killings in the
past fortnight, but women have often been the victims of
attacks by ultra-conservative forces, not just the Taliban.

"It seems a wave of hostility against women has renewed
recently and the targets... have been educated women or
school students," the Women's Affairs Ministry said in a
statement.

It called on the government to provide security for women
and girls at the workplace and in the classroom.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSISL10313420070613

[donsu]

1. how come sane, sensible, caring men can't step up and protect

the women from the religious nuts?

do these kinds of men even exist in Afghanistan?

[NeedleCast]

2. It's a different morality

If you've never been to Afghanistan or the middle east in general, it's really hard to explain this sort of thing. I hope no one will see this post as a defense of this action, because it's not.

One of the things that we, as Americans (or western europeans) do is see morality for our standpoint. If I saw a man beating up a woman on the street, I would attempt to go stop him. In Afghanistan, this is often not the case for men. Depending on the area we're talking about, what religious sect a person belongs to and how they were raised, a man beating a woman is perfectly acceptable. Interference would be taboo, and seen as at least as rude as someone interfering with a parent disciplining a child by giving them a swat on the butt.

I was in Afghanistan for several months and never did adjust to completely to the social rules over there because they are so alien to our own in the west. Just as an example, if you visit a home in most parts of Afghanistan in the late afternoon or early evening, they will cook you a meal or provide, at a minimum, tea and other refreshments, and it would be considered VERY rude and insulting for you not to eat and drink with them. In essence, they would view it as you saying that their food/drink is not good enough for you.

I remember dealing with northern alliance warlords at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. We would provide them fuel for their military vehicles (as they were anti-taliban and thus, the good guys). Two days later, they'd come ask for more fuel. We'd say "what happened to the fuel we gave you" and they'd say "My friend, I'm sorry, it is gone." We found out they had sold 50,000-ish gallons of it and confronted them about this. In the US, this would be a huge theft. If someone provided 50,000 gallons of fuel to the 3rd armored division and they sold it to Exxon, heads would roll. In Afghanistan, it's just business as usual.

In this particular case, a woman (and children) are often viewed as property. Beating up your wife for many males in Afghanistan is normal. The more rural the area, the more normal it is. Won't see it much in Kabul, but in the countryside, it's commonplace. it's all a matter of perspective on where you're from and how you're brought up. If you were a male and had lived your whole life in southern Afghanistan, you probably wouldn't bat an eyelash at something like this.

This post is already long and I could go on at much greater length on this subject and still feel I'm explaining it poorly.

[donsu]

3. thank you much for the explanations

nt

[libodem]

5. Welcome to DU

Thank you for sharing your prospectives. Most Enlightening. I thought we were going to Afghanistan to get the women out of those burkas and see to their educations. All of the pre-war hype was just that. When I hear, Laura Bush, extolling the virtues of the freedoms we have given them I shudder with revulsion. Thanks again for the little slice of live.

[SemperEadem]

4. fear, intimidation and tribal pressure

I doubt they exist in Afghanistan or if they do, they are too imtimidated by tribal justice/Sharia law to step up and do anything. The men are more concerned with maintaining their sense of 'honor' than they are of protecting someone their society views as having little to no value to begin with.

Just today, I read this:
Female War Reporters Hide Sexual Abuse To Continue Getting Assignments
By Judith Matloff, Columbia Journalism Review. Posted June 7, 2007.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/52626/

"In the cases that I know of, the journalists did nothing to provoke the attacks; they behaved with utmost propriety, except perhaps for one bikini-clad woman who was raped by a hotel employee while sunbathing on the roof in a conservative Middle Eastern country."

I'm sorry, but I have a huge disconnect when it comes to a hotel employee having the hubris and nerve to think it's his obligation to rape a female hotel guest in order to instill some form of shame in her for sunbathing in a bikini. He could have just as easily sent out someone to tell her to cover up, but he took it upon himself to administer punishment. I guess he now gets 1,000 virgins waiting upon him when he dies for doing that.

If you get a chance to see the movie "Shame", you should check it out. It was on IFC a few weeks ago.