Afghanistan is a Modern Society

Several months ago, I blogged a bit about the changeover of power in Guinea – at the death of a long-running ruler, the ‘official’ group of kleptocrats and authoritarians was suddenly swept aside by a new, up-and-coming group of kleptocrats and authoritarians, promising ‘democracy’ around the end of the year.

At the time I was cautious about writing off the new lot out of hand – though it was always likely that they would be indistinguishable from the previous group, it wasn’t impossible that from some anomalous personal scruple or (more likely) the continued pressure of the popular groups who had been struggling against the old government, there might be some change worth noticing – no prospect of a substantially non-shitty arrangement, but perhaps better, insofar as I’d rather live in a representative democracy with civil rights than not.

Turns out my caution was misplaced: protests banned, more than 150 shot, and the head of the military junta planning to stand for election.

Of course, any unwarranted glimmer of hope in my analysis is quite different from the sort of messianic optimism that so many people have displayed over these latest elections in Afghanistan: manifestly rigged, and besides run between rival coalitions of warlords, drug barons, fundamentalists and ultra-conservatives, who seem quite able to defy western pressure when it comes to enshrining the rights of rapists in law, but not when it comes to stopping Americans from setting off bombs in civilian areas.

Here’s an interesting thing though. There’s a certain reflex that I think many Western observers make, a mental knee-jerk which involves saying “of course, it’s terrible that these countries, like Guinea and Afghanistan, are so enmired in instability and corruption – but that’s because they are ‘less evolved’, more ‘primitive’, and over time they will build up the sorts of institutions and culture needed for democracy, like we have.”

What a Wonderful World

Congratulations! Everything's fucked up!

Dear Whoever’s-Going-To-Win the world’s biggest ever election,

I couldn’t think of what to buy you as a present, but I got my friends to chip in, and we are hoping to get you three separate civil wars in your neighbours to the North, West, and South. They are all in various stages of development, and maybe they’ll fizzle out, but as long as we have sufficient bastards available, pushing the line that they must acheive victory against their terrorist opponents at all costs, we’re quite confident. We even hear your predecesors have been contributing a bit of help themselves.

Hope you enjoy!

yours,

Unfeeling universe

Priest Protests: I’m not condoning rape – just starving her until she says ‘Yes’

"I totally respect the autonomy of women and I want all the men listening to stop their women saying I don't."

Being the world’s top patriarchal religious dipshit (TPRD) is a tough competition. In terms of sheer numbers of people willing to listen and feel embarassed, Joseph Ratzinger is probably the top, but in the interests of fairness, here’s an up-and-coming talent.

Mohammad Asif Mohseni is, if I under aright, the (or a) TPRD for the Shia community in Afghanistan (a minority community in that Sunni country, but an electorally strategic one). He is also the co-drafter and an outspoken defender of the new laws which would make putting your penis in someone a right and going outside with a vagina a privilege.

He is also on record, prior to the recent demonstration against this law, as having instructed Shia men to prevent shia women from attending said protest – an instruction which did not fall on deaf ears, judging by the number of women reportedly prevented from attending by various thugs and self-appointed moral enforcers.

Choice quotes, on the subject of why men should be able to command their wives to have sex or put on make up, include:

“It is not possible for all women to pay the same amount of money as men are paying. For all these expenses, can’t we at least give the right to a husband to demand sex from his wife after four nights?”

“If she is not sick, and if she does not have another problem, it is the right of a man to ask for sex and she should make herself ready for it. This is the right of a man.”

He charitably explains that this doesn’t mean the man should rape his wife (though if he does, whose fault is it really? eh?) but simply that

“If a woman says no, the man has the right not to feed her.”

And also, presumably, the right to exercise his control of her movements to imprison her without food – wait, those sound familiar…

What I want to focus on though is “The Westerners claim that they have brought democracy to Afghanistan. What does democracy mean? It means government by the people for the people. They should let the people use these democratic rights.”

Rape and Imprisonment (of Women) Debated in Parliament (by Men)

It’s obviously true that different people have different ideas of what their natural and fair rights are. For example, I would naturally suppose that I have the right to walk around outside, but that I as an individual have no right to have sex with another individual.

Yet, as one more part of the rich a diverse tapestry of cultures across the world, the Afghan parliament is proposing that I have this the wrong way round. Sex is in fact something that can be an individual’s right, and going outside can be a privilege.

Of course the people with the right to demand sex (Shia husbands) also naturally have the right to walk around outside. And those whose vaginas are to be legally transferred to someone else are the ones losing the right to walk outside.

This law has prompted protest, reassuringly, but the protests held by Afghan feminists are met by larger protests by supporters of the law (i.e. the pro-rape-and-imprisonment faction). Not just outnumbered, in fact, but pelted with stones.

This is not a law drafted by the Taliban, and the stone-throwers protesting in its favour are not Talibannites (as Shi’ites, the Taliban would consider them heretics). This is not the manifestation of a dark, malign, cave-dwelling force of evil that can be driven out with bombs and guns.

This is an expression of widespread societal misogyny. It is an expression of forces which can only be destroyed by two things: grass-roots change led by Afghan women, or a bombing campaign by foreign occupation forces. Which kills every individual in the country.

Western governments, for what it’s worth, are condemning the law. And that might be ok – there may well be little more that they can do to really change the situation. Except that some of those governments (not just the US, but, going a bit further back, the Russians and the British) have used their supposed aim of removing this sort of misogyny to justify an invasion – and are still using it to some extent to justify robotic warfare in Pakistan.

In related news, an International Labour Conference has been held in Iraq, which is a step forward. At the same time, a motion was brought forward in support of women’s rights and, after debate, defeated. This is – well, a step in that it was brought and debated, a non-step in that it was still defeated.

War, I Despise.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone, and don’t read if you value the will to live, but the invasion of Iraq has not liberated Iraqi women, and the invasion of Afghanistan has not liberated Afghan women.

It’s odd. It’s almost as if violent methods tend to produce violent results. But that can’t be true, because that would suggest that organisations which rely for their everyday functioning on the threat of violence, like the government or the police, would be making us overall less safe, not more.

And it’s almost as if the oppression of women weren’t the alien import of a specific brand of ideology, but a deeply-rooted facet of all cultures and societies. But that can’t be true, because that would suggest that an almost unthinkably thorough-going social transformation remains necessary.

I’m confused.

Also, respect to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afganistan.