When, at the end of May of this year (2001), we published as the politics review of this ezine (click here, in case you didn't get a chance to read it) the translation of an article from Spanish journalist Montserrat Boix about the oppressive Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and about how this regime was being particularly abusive to women, little did we know how relevant this article would become after the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that took place on September 11, 2001. Although it now seems obvious that Afghanistan was a major time-bomb, the timing of our interest in this country couldn't have been more accidentally prophetic, so to speak. Thus, we have decided to use the same reddish page design, because we think that red (a color that to us not only symbolizes energy/passion, but also, to a certain extent, violence) is still pretty much appropriate as a background for the tragedy of this topic and its current relevance. At this point (November 15, 2001), without any certainty as to how this crisis will end (some have already started viewing the USA military retaliation against Afghanistan as another Viet Nam), it seems that most people are not worried as much anymore about the women of Afghanistan, since obviously the whole country has become the target of violence, not only by the Taliban regime/Osama Bin Laden's terrorist network, but as a result of the devastating effects that the USA's (and its allies's) military retaliation against Afghanistan will most likely have. Regardless of other political/general considerations (some of which we will comment next), we in this ezine hope that, once this nightmare is over, the issue of women discrimination is not forgotten in Afghanistan, and that the new government that emerges in this country finally enforces equality and human rights for all of its members. 
The latter may seem a difficult task, according to Muslim-British journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who writes a column for the British newspaper The Independent, and who published an article titled "The Truth About Islam and Women", in which she gives a critical perspective of the discriminated situation of women in general in Muslim societies, not only in Afghanistan (to read it, click here). However, according to Ph. D. Zieba Shorish-Shamley, "It is not the Islamic ideologies that determine the position of women in the Islamic societies, it is rather the pre-Islamic patriarchal ideologies existing in a particular society, combined with the lack of education and ignorance, that construct the Muslim women's position." (to read the full article, click here). At any rate, it would be worth reconsidering this issue, given the current state of affairs in Afghanistan and in other Islamic countries, because perhaps one of the many urgent measures that could contribute to avoid political radicalisms and terrorisms from Muslim societies is to enforce the full equality of men and women, the respect of women as having equal rights as men, because as long as there is a society where certain basic values deemed "universal" (regardless of any religious beliefs, such as the equality of all human beings) are not applied due to radical misinterpretations of a given religion, it is already a society potentially conflictive. But, undoubtedly, this Afghanistan/September 11, 2001 world crisis has generated a series of other political discussions and reflections, a couple of which we would like to bring to the attention of our readers. We would like to make reference to articles that, in our opinion, reflect different points of view about such issues, but we want to make clear that they do not necessarily reflect our own opinion. We are merely trying to give a more or less "balanced" perspective of certain issues related to this crisis. 
To begin with, there is the issue of the use of military force to solve this crisis. As we know, this crisis was caused in the first place by violent attacks which caused the death of thousands of Americans. The USA seems to have clearly identified these attacks as a declaration of war, in the most traditional sense of aggressions among states, and thus it deemed it necessary to retaliate with a military force, though making sure it got first the support of all of its political allies. The Spanish newspaper El País, a progressive and traditionally supportive of the left/socialist ideology in Spain (it was actually created after the end of the totalitarian regime of late Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco), published an editorial on the 6th of October, 2001, in which it analyzed this crisis and clearly declared the military response from the USA against Afghanistan as "legitimate". We have made a free-translation of this editorial (to read it, click here), but we want to stress that this is not an official translation and that all copyrights belong to El País. The original article in Spanish can be found by clicking here. 
As a counter-reaction to the use of military force, the issue of peace to solve this crisis has also arisen. Shortly before the military response from the USA, the Nobel Prize committee received a nomination for next year's (2002) Nobel Peace Prize for President George W. Bush, conditioned to his government's response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. As we know, the USA ended up retaliating militarily, so this nomination did not achieve the effect that certain pacifist militants had probably hoped for. But, as we also know, the Nobel Prize committee seems determined to make its voice heard in support of world peace, especially given the current crisis, and although we also know that this prize has obviously suffered at times the effects of political pressure on the selection of its winners (the clearest example is that Gandhi was nominated several times and never received the Nobel Peace Prize, probably to avoid tensions with a political ally, the United Kingdom; check here for more information about this), the current Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, and the UN itself were awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize. That is why we would like to make reference to the words of some of the previous Nobel Peace Prize laureates, who have made specific comments about this current crisis here). We find particularly interesting the words of also Nobel Peace Prize laureate José Ramos-Horta, Foreign Minister of East Timor.  
Next, there is the issue of the (political) "causes" that led to the September 11, 2001 attacks or, as some have called it, the "rationalization" of the attacks. An interesting debate in this respect, between UK journalist Christopher Hitchens and USA political science writer/philosopher/linguist Noam Chomsky can be found here. In short, in our opinion, Chomsky follows his usual line of strict criticism ("demonization" to some) of the USA/the capitalist system and indirectly "justifies" the attacks based on past and current (future?) USA foreign policies, while Hutchinson speaks bluntly of "Islamic [fundamentalism] fascism". Even though you must take your time to read the exchange between these 2, because the replies are quite extensive in general, they are definitely worth reading. 
And last, but not least, although there are many other issues that could be mentioned, like the excessive patriotism (from either attacked or attackers), the irrational/unfair racism that has been generated against Muslims in general (in some cases indirectly backed by polemic declarations of famous characters, such as those of Italian journalist/feminist author Oriana Fallaci; click here to read them), media censorship/propaganda/free flow of information in the Internet, the loss of certain aspects of already achieved civil liberties like freedom of speech, etc., we would like to mention, as a general and crucial issue, human suffering. Due to the world impact of the September 11 attacks, this crisis seems to have focused the attention of the whole world on, first, the victims and the relatives of the victims in the USA (check here for information about this), and then obviously on the victims that will be generated by the USA military retaliation against Afghanistan (check here for information about this). To be insensitive to either one would be just as horrendous as the suffering itself of either victims, but we must not forget that, according to the Hunger Project of the United Nations, an average of 24000 people die everyday of hunger (check The Hunger Site information here), and that there are other daily violent conflicts in this world (check here) that would also require as much support and attention from the whole world (especially the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which could be the cause of other major future world tensions). © 2001 by TheResLes © of the photos by their corresponding owners/authors To visit our other sections, click any of the links below: |
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