Yesterday I started to write about women in Afghanistan and then stopped, partly out of anger and partly out of a feeling of powerlessness. What with the final meeting of the G20 dominating the news, the angry protests of the day before in London, the headline in the business section of the morning paper talking about the 26 million buyout package of the former boss of GM, I chickened out. I chickened out because I thought who will see the relevance and importance of what is and has been happening to women in Afghanistan -perhaps I will be viewed as just some sort of feminist ranter who never misses an opportunity to miss the point.
What prompted my outrage was a headline in the Globe and Mail four pages into the main section. "Law legalizing rape in marriage prompts outcry."
My first question was what is the purpose of this article?.. Why now , when almost unprecedented brutality against women and children in Afghanistan has been going on since the Taliban, US armed and backed in order to defeat the Soviets, has been going on for decades? In Afghanistan there has been nothing short of reign of terror on women and female children for years- so why would Canada's main newspaper give it a 4th page main section headline now, today, at a time when Obama is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan and Canada's bootlicking Prime Minister falls in step behind him despite the fact that Canada has maintained more casualties than any other coalition supporter of the occupation there.
Where has the general "outrage" been up till now? Certainly a very few women's groups and the courageous women in RAWA who daily risk their lives to expose the minute by minute abominations against women have been trying to break the silence.
When has the rape and control of womens minds and bodies, every waking moment,ever been a reason to go to war, to occupy a country or influence foreign policy. I have learned that the capitalist class and their elected politicians have absolutely no interest in anything other than profit and the short and long term survival of the capitalist system. So what is this "ourtage" about "marital rape"? I just do not get it. What's up here? After all it not until 1982 that the Canadian government officially recognized rape in marriage and made it a criminal offense.
Where was the outrage when the US supported Taliban took power? One does not have to support the short lived Soviet government in Afghanistan to know full and clear that under the Soviets women in Afghanistan began to enjoy full and equal rights to men, to university education, to jobs and at least as much control over their bodies and minds as any women in the West.
What hypocricy, what abominations!.
So perhaps someone can enlighten me . Why yesterday and today are we hearing this outcry against a law, approved by puppet President Karzai, that legally condones marital rape? Clearly the passing of this law is an attempt to solicit support from the most conservative and extreme elements in Afghanistan? In the interests of "nation building" , in the interests of maintaining American economic interests in the area, in the name of "democracy" , (certainly no democracy for over 50 percent of the female population of the country)? what a sham! As Canadian politicians and foreign affairs officials bluster and storm , in a effort to fool Canadians into thinking that they care about the lives of women anywhere, the usual Imperialist game persists and women are mere pawns.
One provision of the law states that the wife '"is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires" and the husband "has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night."'
But who cares? After all it is a small trade off I guess for the "collective security of Afghanistan" and its allies. What count the lives, well-being and "security" of the women and female children of Afhganistan in this so called "collective" notion?
Nothing here is new. I am just marvelling and cringing at the BS and the hypocricy and the corruption of the capitalist system. Working people everywhere are all slaves of capitalism, men and women and our children alike. Our land, our labour is owned used and abused every second of the day. Obama, the phony sell-out traitor would like to see workers aound the world compete for meagre subsistence wages , in order to save the imperialist capitalist class that created racism , and subordinated and oppressed women over centuries.
Maybe I have answered my own question-maybe not. Just as Obama tried to deflect working people's anger onto a few rich CEO,s in order to obscure the reality of the failure and corruption of capitalism as a SYSTEM until he was reigned in by the class that ensured his election , so Canadian politicians and foreign policy makers feel they must bluster a bit about the the laws in Afghanistan , allow a little bit of protest into the mainstream media so they can look good to the working people in Canada who daily question our action in Afghanistan as more and more dead soldiers return,more jobs go and the economy sinks. What does this mean? I know what it does NOT mean-it does not mean that the capitalist class gives a damn about the rights of women anywhere unless they are forced to feign interest in order to subdue rising protest. And only if that protest is part of a larger anger and growing mobilization of the working class, youth and the oppressed. They sheed abuses of the rights of any oppressed section of any society only when it is necessary to maintain the short and long term survival of their system. I guess being one step ahead of the rising protest, collaborators blustering in outrage before they pull back into business as usual, is part of the art of capitalist war.
After all as a University of Ottawa professor states, "the new law is so egregious that western nations had an easy choice to oppose it, but as they scale back emphasis on democracy and support reconciliation with Taliban elements, other hard choices will come." What a soft peddle-"hard choices."
I feel a chill going down my spine as I have so often before as I write this and hope others will too.
No comments:
Post a Comment