Christian-Influenced Whores

Any woman, or any defender of women in Afghanistan today, who claims that women are entitled to equal treatment with men is considered an apostate, an affront to Islam, a sell-out to Christianity, a whore.

"We want our rights!" shout a relative handful of courageous young women, "We want equality!". It's abundantly clear that their attitude is not to be countenanced, that they have been morally corrupted by the horrible influence of Western thought and expectations for human rights.

A gathering of Afghani women audaciously made a decision to provocatively gather before the School of the Last Prophet, a madrassa under the control of the country's most respected Shiite cleric. The very individual who, along with his collegial scholars in Shia interpretation of Shariah Law drafted the controversial new 'family law' bill passed by both houses of the Afghan parliament.

"We are here to campaign for our rights", claimed one of the marchers through a loudspeaker, encouraging her companions, holding aloft banners, and chanting their determination to be viewed as human beings, not chattels. Inciting hundreds of students to stream out of the madrassa, to shout their outraged defiance of this unparalleled conceit of equality.

"Death to the enemies of Islam!" was the message from the counter-demonstrators.
"Death to the slaves of the Christians!"

There has been progress in that benighted country, thanks to the intervention of those very Christians whom the fanatical Islamists so despise and deride for their corruption of religious values and social traditions. There are now women engaged in a vast array of enterprises, forbidden them by the fundamentalist Taliban, so eager to retake the governance of the country.

The Shia clerics and the Taliban would appear to have much in common in their low opinion of women, whose place most surely is in the deep, dark recesses of their homes, never to see the light of day without an all-encompassing burka, led by a male relative in public spheres. Both Shia Afghans and Sunni Taliban feel a recalcitrant woman need know her place, and physical blows can help shred that stubborn streak into meek acceptance.

What separates them each is their detestation one for the other, of their choice of Islamic faith and expression, for only one can represent adherence to the one True Faith, the other an insulting-to-the-Prophet-and-Allah, pretension not to be countenanced. And so, when one is in the ascendancy, the other suffers derision and vicious denunciation, oppression and deprivation.

Much as they visit upon their womenfolk.

Women, being the frail and bovine-like creatures that they are, know little of what they demand. It is not they, after all, who are the scholars, those respected elders able to decipher and interpret the writings of the Koran and the Hadith. The clerics who deeply understand Islamic law know whereof they speak, and the women, clearly do not.

They are as stubborn, spoilt children, and must be beaten.

Above all, as Mohammed Hussein Jafaari pointed out politely, "We Afghans don't want a bunch of NATO commanders and foreign ministers telling us what to do."