We Won the War; The Heck With the Peace!

Amnesty International is taking a lot of unfair heat these days for a report comparing the worldwide network of U.S.-established detention facilities set up in the aftermath of 9/11 with the Gulag system of Soviet-era Russia. Unfortunately, the resultant paroxysms of conservative rage have helped obscure an equally damning Amnesty International report issued days earlier, one dealing with the plight of women in Afghanistan today.

AI admits that, compared to the previous decades of Mujahedin and then Taliban rule, women’s rights have improved markedly at the state level … at least on paper. Afghanistan’s new Constitution of January 2004, for instance, explicitly declares that both men and women in Afghanistan have equal rights under the law. The new constitution also guarantees women a share of political power, reserving for them 27 percent of seats in the lower house of parliament. The number of girls in school continues to increase, as does the percentage of women who are registered to vote (currently topping 40%). Officially, women can seek employment outside the home, although it is expected they will first gain their families’ permission.

Nevertheless, AI is adamant in declaring that too little has changed in the overall life circumstances of the majority of Afghani women. “Women in Afghanistan,” AI asserts, “live daily with the threat of sexual violence, abduction, forced marriage and murder.” Much of the violence against women in Afghanistan traces back to the home, and is exacerbated by custom, religion and the generally unsettled nature of much of the country still today. Domestic violence is so prevalent, and the recourses for women so few, that post-Taliban Afghanistan has witnessed a veritable plague of self-immolations by women, wherein they attempt suicide by dousing themselves with gasoline and setting themselves on fire. AI found that the vast majority of such cases were attributable to family violence.

“In spite of the general improvement,” AI noted, “Amnesty International was informed by women and girls in focus groups and interviews that they felt their situation had remained largely unchanged.” AI went on to complain that the government hasn’t done nearly enough to insure that the rights of women are being protected; AI further complained that government officials have been too reticent to forcibly condemn traditional patriarchal practices hostile to women’s advancement.

Now, I can’t really blame the Bush Administration for letting this story pass largely without comment. However, it does once again point to the Bush Administration's profound reluctance to grapple with the myriad and nuanced consequences of its actions. Yes, U.S. troops helped overthrow the Taliban and set up a democratic government elected by the people. But then what? Didn’t we once again forget about their history and culture?

It seems to me our basic problem as Americans (exemplified especially well by the members of the Bush Administration), is that we imagine the rest of the world is basically Just Like Us. All we have to do is get rid of whatever arbitrary seeming impediment exists, such as the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, and, by golly, the true ‘american’ in everyone will suddenly blossom forth. Give them elections, and equality and social harmony (and maybe even a couple of McDonald’s restaurants) will soon follow.

Moreover, we Americans forget that our own democratic society matured into its present form in fits and starts, and often at the cost of much suffering and sometimes even bloodshed. And not so long ago we were still working out the glaring “bugs” in our system, witness the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s (or even today’s ongoing struggle for recognition and equality by homosexuals).

Time and much effort will be needed to encourage the sort of changes in Afghanistan’s (and Iraq’s) civic culture necessary to truly guarantee the freedom and equality of all its citizens. Lots of international aid money and international pressure on Afghanistan’s government to uphold women’s rights would also help. Hopefully, the U.S. will not repeat its earlier mistakes vis-à-vis Afghanistan. Following the successful late-1980s overthrow of a Soviet-backed puppet regime by the Mujahedin, the U.S. effectively forgot about Afghanistan and left its people to their own devices in a war-ravaged, chaotic, violent and disunited country. A direct result of U.S. neglect was the eventual rise of the Taliban, and of their ally and sometime financier, Osama bin Laden.

Peace!
Historian
(PS- Visit the Amnesty International website at www.amnestyusa.org)