Resentment Misplaced - Or Not?

Seething with indignation that the West seeks to relentlessly impose their morals, scruples and ideals on countries accustomed to their singular cultural and religious traditions, the very women whom governments and populations in the West are concerned about, are lashing out at conceived interference.

This resentment is reflective of basic human nature; neither individuals, nor social groups, nor governments take kindly to other individuals, social groups or governments informing them that their traditions are lacking. In self-defence hostility toward those who criticize becomes a routine activity.

"They don't know anything about us and our problems" countered Kandahar provincial council member Sitara Achakzai, informed of the controversy that Afghanistan's new Shia-proposed law further victimizing women has provoked. "If they faced what we have faced with hunger and war, they'd realize what is most important to fight for here. Before they come here they should ... experience our difficulties."

Well, they won't 'experience' those 'difficulties', because that particular set of difficulties, de-legitimizing the legal and human rights of women simply wouldn't fly in any Western country. It is precisely because those engaged in helping the country overcome the insurgent Taliban's aspirational ambitions, encountered the dire oppression of women in the country that has outraged their sense of morality.

Despite the reaction of many Afghan women, accustomed to their straitened human rights, and their claims that the problem of women's rights in Afghanistan belong to Afghan women, NATO countries still see a human-rights obligation on their part, owing to the women and children of that dysfunctional society.

"But we do not want total freedom. We wanted it to be limited, and to be within Islam", explained an 18-year-old Hazara architecture student at Kabul University.

The submissive attitude of this young university-educated Afghan, aspiring to a profession that the return of Taliban rule would deny her, is not shared by some older, more experienced women. A wife and mother of two, and a campaigner for women's rights, representing the Badakhshan constituency points out that few within the country itself have much knowledge of the proposed new family law.

"NATO is here to fight terror, but if you do not protect democracy and human rights, we may not end up with terrorism, but with extremism, which is just as bad", observed Fauzia Kofi. She's the legislator. Young Afghan women in university remain at odds with her opinion, claiming that the proposed law, faulty as it may be, is none of NATO's business.

"This law is not something that Karzai should sign because there must be mutual agreement within a marriage, but what westerners have to realize is that it is much better for us than it was before when the Taliban behaved so badly toward us" said a married Sunni pharmacist. "Under the Taliban I was forced to wear a burka and my sister was beaten once on her feet for only showing her eyes. Now I don't wear a burka, so that is progress."

Afghan women, at least those in the urban centres, have seen a real albeit modest improvement in their lives, unreflective of the feudal-era lives of their sisters living in farming communities and isolated rural areas of the country where there has been little change to benefit women. Still, their perception is that as good Muslims, accustomed to living under the aegis of of their fundamentalist menfolk, they've no real quarrels with the impending legislation.

As beneficial as their education has been to them, it has not freed them from what the West perceives as the shackles of fundamentalist shariah laws interpreted by mullahs who consider women inferior appendages of society. This is their choice. They may turn deliberately blind eyes to the misery suffered by too many Afghan women and children, and this again, is their choice.

They cannot possibly be totally ignorant of the incidences of acid-throwing in the faces of young rural Afghan girls attending school, the murder of teachers, the torching of schools, the assassinations of female parliamentarians and police officers. Parochial resentment of the criticism of foreigners troublingly dilutes their presence of mind.