WAR IN
AFGHANISTAN
In order to truly comprehend the cultural origins of the vision that people in general have of the abuse towards women in the Afghanistan, we need to go back to the Muslim cultural pillars. The Quran, which is their version of the bible, preaches that men and women are equal and their only authority is Allah. There is no doubt that women have suffered major oppression throughout the history, not only in Islamic countries, but throughout the world, however this dramatic view that Muslim women are the ones who suffered the most just because they, for example, cover their entire body in public or “have” to – not really because they can decline their husbands request – accept the fact her husband can marry up to 4 times, are actually mistaken. The majority of Muslim women nowadays accept and embrace the fact that the hijab, for example, is a part of their culture and their religion, and instead of fighting against it, they welcome it as a part of their own, as mentioned by Marianne a UN correspondent in the Middle East: “Take for example, veiling. It’s viewed in the West as something that is forced upon Muslim women and a symbol of their oppression. For many Muslim women this is not the case, but rather an individual choice reflecting their deep devotion to their faith. While some women no doubt have been imposed by their families to wear the hijab (veil) I have met many women in the Middle East whose husbands oppose it but the women choose to do so because of their own personal faith as signs of their modesty, privacy and spirituality.” I hope some of these facts create a question within the current reader of this paper about just how much the world media made us, westernized countries, believe that just because Muslim culture is different from ours, some of their actions can immediately be considered abuse.
LACK OF RIGHTS
OR ABUSE OF CULTURE?
It becomes important to emphasize the fact that even though this editorial is questioning the actual extent of the abuse towards women considering their Muslim cultural pillars, in any form it is a confirmation that abuse is inexistent because there are indeed several examples out there, however the causes for them are different than many of the world population nowadays knows. Beating of women, deprivation of education, multiple marriages and circumcisions are some of the problems women in Afghanistan suffer, however different from the common belief that the origins of these problems are in the Muslim religion and what The Quran preaches, the fight Afghan women fight are actually against their leaders and the men within society, which follow some of the principles listed from Friedrich and Brzezinski when relating to Authoritarianism means: terroristic policies towards women, weapon monopoly, communications monopoly and mainly an elaborate ideology based on a distorted vision from the Quran.
Just like the bible, the Quran has many ambiguities, therefore misleading some people to believe that indeed the origin of the problems is within the religion. Another important fact is the awareness that the feminist fight for equality is still happening throughout the world and not just in Afghanistan or Islamic countries. Another important fact is that not only men impose themselves over women, the feminist society within Afghan women is week, having the majority of them (96% according to a survey The Atlantic did) believing that a wife should always obey her husband, only 30% of them believing that sons and daughters should have equal inheritance rights and a very small amount within Islamic countries believing that women should have the right to divorce. As mentioned before, the Quran, just like any other religious book, may mislead not only the men into thinking they are more powerful then they actually are, but women into thinking they are less then what they actually can be, which according to some viewpoints in the Quran is to reach the goal of gender equality.
Therefore I believe that the problem with women’s rights and abuse is a misleading role of media, culture and religion. The hijab for example actually has a beautiful meaning - regardless of how shocking for western women it is for a women to cover herself completely - which is to cover up everything so that women can be seen for their brain not their looks. Media sometimes make their viewers and readers believe that being obligated to cover their entire body is a dramatic demand that Muslim women completely opposed to, when actually the majority of them think that the westernized way of dressing is what is shocking. Another major factor is the abuse of the culture combined with religion, the Quran actually says that women should have access to education and those who seek to learn will be better in the eyes of Allah, therefore gaining easier access to paradise. However some leaders and men, misleading the Quran instructions, lead their women to believe they should not learn, depriving many of them from education. It is essential to remember though that the fight for women education is very recent and many women only gained a major independence in work when facing a total war period starting in World War I in the 1910s and 20s. There is indeed lack of rights, but the real problem here is the abuse of culture and this is what the UN and media, when interfering in the seek for women's rights on Afghanistan, should fix.
