I excoriate Obama’s Administration for their silence on Afghanistan’s rape law. Mayor of Kabul, indeed…
Islam News @ NYT- Women’s Rights in Mideast:
- Driving Miss Saudi: Young women in Riyadh try to balance Islam and modernity as the stunted desert kingdom makes progress in “Saudi Time.”
- Swedish Artist Says Sketch of Prophet Aimed to Mock All Religions: A man who prosecutors say was the target of a murder plot says his caricature of the Prophet Muhammad was intended to poke fun at all sacred symbols.
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Tariq Nelson 1:45 pm on March 31, 2009 Permalink |
That is THEIR law and is according to THEIR custom. I am as appalled as any Westerner by such a law, but we can not go around imposing our values on the rest of the world. That is THEIR law and there is nothing that we can (or should) do about it.
thabet 1:57 pm on March 31, 2009 Permalink |
All the more reason for the US to leave Afghanistan once their security concerns are over.
aziz 1:58 pm on March 31, 2009 Permalink |
you dont believe in universal human rights? you take a purely relative position to morality?
surely you can see how your position might be applied towards minority communities right here in the US that are plagued by violence as “just THEIR culture” and how such attitudes – beyond simply being racist – would undercut any reformer attempting to improve their own community’s plight?
aziz 2:00 pm on March 31, 2009 Permalink |
incidentally, the concept of universality of human rights, independent of culture, is a qur’anic concept:
http://muslim-canada.org/emory.htm
(great overview of relevant ayats)
abunoor 2:11 pm on March 31, 2009 Permalink |
Aziz,
While I don’t completely agree with Tariq’s position (mainly because in this case the U.S. decided to invade and continues to have troops in Afghanistan so cannot claim to not be responsible for what is going on there, although I do agree the U.S. should leave), most meaningful change comes from within communities/cultures and people trying to come from outside of that culture and tell people what they are doing is wrong often provokes a defensive backlash and rarely results in positive, lasting change.
At the same time, we all agree that there are things which are differences between cultures which should be respected and things which are universal issues of right and wrong in which every human has a stake….the question comes in where exactly do we draw the line…it is still very difficult to know what is going on in this case without more details.
One thing this example does bring to the forefront is the absolute dishonesty and hypocrisy of almost all of those in the west who claimed to support the war against the Taliban because they were all of a sudden concerned about Afghan women (a concern which only started after 9/11)…but we knew that already.
thabet 3:05 pm on March 31, 2009 Permalink |
Foreigners wielding guns do not usually help those from within these communities/groups who are working for the betterment of their societies.
aziz 3:32 pm on March 31, 2009 Permalink |
frankly I dont see how we are “imposing” anything on Afghanistan. if anything we are enabling the native culture’s worst excesses. I reject teh implicit assumption that our values and morals in teh west are different from those of the afghanis or any other peoples; thats a philosophical point perhaps we can disagree on, but i think my position isn’t entirely indefensible (see my link re: qur’anic support for human rights).
foreigners wielding guns in afghanistan are largelu irrelevant to how afghanistan society has progressed over the past 8 years. After all, the taliban retain control.
and yes, meaningful change comes from within. But that change cannot occur until the field is cleared of authoritarian control by equally native forces that oppose such reform. Its a romantic view that all opressed people will rise ultimately someday against their oppression, but thats only happenned perhaps twice in all of history. and in those cases, the opression was far milder than what the muslims in afghanistan and iran and saudi and gaza and darfur experience.
Willow 3:40 pm on March 31, 2009 Permalink |
I have to agree with what’s been said. Real, meaningful social change cannot be imposed from the outside. I think that’s been proven again and again.
What I would like to see is a better, clearer means of funneling money and support to *Afghani* groups working to combat this kind of moral backsliding.
aziz 3:59 pm on March 31, 2009 Permalink |
and I agree. but i dont think that the mission in afghanistan is equivalent to “imposing change”. see my comment above.
Tariq Nelson 6:28 pm on March 31, 2009 Permalink |
Yes
No, I don’t have a relative position on morality. My position is that each and every thing that we – as Westerners – see that we do not like, we can not impose it upon others. There are tons of things going on all over the planet and there is no way to put a stop to all of it. No one wants to see anyone raped, killed or maimed, but we can’t go around policing the world.
That MAY work. However, they can’t be seen as foreign agents either doing the bidding of an outsider. I am mostly for staying out of others’ affairs – except for when they are coming to harm us.
thabet 12:44 am on April 1, 2009 Permalink |
Aziz,
Ho do you remove illiberal ‘native forces’ who oppose ‘reform’ without ‘imposing change’?
Remember, the ‘rape law’ was proposed and enacted by people who cannot be dismissed as Taliban.
alc 2:29 pm on April 3, 2009 Permalink |
Sorry, but this is typical cultural relativist BS, because it’s based on a culture whose foundation does not take the oppressed underclass (i.e. women) into account.
When the underclass in question is denied any political power, it means that the ones who define the culture in question are the subjugators who wrote the law. And therefore, the oppressors/rapists are the sum total of this particular culture. The natural extension to the argument that no one should pay any mind to THEIR law is that women are voluntarily compliant with their own oppression. Maybe they want to be oppressed, and we should just leave them alone for that reason? That would appear to be the implication.
aziz 4:53 pm on April 3, 2009 Permalink |
i dont think we can and should “remove” illiberal forces, except in extreme cases (like the Nazis, which also were expansionist and a threat beyond their orders). However we can try to nfluence and undermine them by other means.
I think that military action should not be an unthinkable at all costs option, but rather one of last resort (the opposite viewof the previous Administration). There rae cases where we should make it clear what our threshold fo raction will be, regardless of cost to us or difficulty (nuclear explosion on our osil, chinese attack on taiwan, N korean assault on S Korea, etc). But if it ever actuallycame to that, it would represent a profound failure on our part to have let things degrade that far.
The only regime on earth that is truly irrational is the N Korean one.
tg 2:47 pm on April 4, 2009 Permalink |
The video is awful, but what about if a muslim nation turns around and claims abortion in the west is unacceptable and they then had a right to intrude into our society and influence it.
We would never tolerate that type of interference and likewise, we should not bother trying to change cultures that don’t affect us.
CosmicConservative 12:27 pm on April 6, 2009 Permalink |
The question of whether there is a moral imperative to intervene in the affairs of other countries is an old one, probably as old as the first stirrings of organized governments.
In general the consensus of governments has been that intervention is almost always wrong, and exceptions have been hard to find. Part of this is simple self-preservation, once a country begins to operate as a police force within other nations, they are likely to find their own national security at risk. Part of it is principle. As tg says, what if another nation decides to put a stop to the millions of murders of unborn children in this country.
In this case the situation is somewhat muddled by the fact that the existing government was put in place after a military invasion and overthrow of the previous government.
It puts Obama in an awkward position of trying to show that Afghanistan is a truly sovereign government, while still wanting to see that the purpose of the original invasion itself has not been violated.
It’s a tough spot. I don’t envy him or any other President who finds themselves in this spot. No matter what he does, he’s going to be attacked by someone.