It seems everywhere I turn I hear about Afghanistan in Canadian media. That’s why we’ve had to cover it so often on Muslim Lookout (here and here for instance). The Ottawa Citizen recently published an article about the recent protest by Afghani women against the proposition of a terribly oppressive law. Meanwhile, rabble.ca published an interview with female Afghani politician Malalai Joya on the same issue. Both had completely different takes.
Malalai Joya. Image via malalaijoya.com
The Ottawa Citizen article came across as not only ill-informed and ignorant of the relevant issues, but also as paternalistic and condescending. It focused only on the actions of the Afghani people and completely ignored the role of Western presence in the creation of this law. In contrast, the rabble.ca interview and approach tackled pertinent issues which are too quickly ignored by mainstream Canadian media.
From The Ottawa Citizen:
The remarkable courage of a few hundred women in Kabul, who stood up for their beliefs in the face of shouting and stoning, is a reminder that the world must not give up on the women of Afghanistan.
Had there not been an international outcry over the so-called “rape law”, those women might not have found the strength to protest the law in the streets — especially in the presence of a large, violent counter-demonstration.
Indeed, they might not have even known about the law had it not been for the international media; the government of Hamid Karzai did not make an effort to consult or inform the public.
Now let’s take a look at this line again:
Had there not been an international outcry over the so-called “rape law”, those women might not have found the strength to protest the law in the streets
Granted international attention can often provide people with an extra umph in their step, and I may even buy the argument that the news may not have reached many Afganis had international news media not picked it up. However, I have hard time believing that Afghani women needed international attention to find strength. The implication here is that this strength would have been non-existent otherwise. The threat this new law poses for Afghani women is not what is seen as their motivation to protest, but rather international attention. The sentiment seems to be that had the all beneficent Western media not paid attention this this case, Afghani women would have remained helpless and weak.
In the rabble.ca interview, regarding the protest Joya states:
Despite the threats from the fundamentalist bands that are still armed and in power, it is of course great and heartening when some women come out into the streets and oppose such laws. It shows Afghan women will not allow the laws of the Middle Ages to be applied against them and that they have the strength to stand up for their rights.
In the past few years our country’s unfortunate women have resisted their suffering through hundreds of self-immolations; I am very hopeful that Afghan women are gaining the consciousness not to burn themselves but instead to stand up and claim their rights through struggle.
Joya attributes resistance to those resisting – Afghani women. She recognizes their agency in resisting oppression. Joya also reminds us that Afghani women have been resisting, albeit through self-immolations, for some time now. However, from reading The Ottawa Citizen one would assume otherwise (emphasis mine):
The remarkable courage of a few hundred women in Kabul who stood up for their beliefs in the face of shouting and stoning, is a reminder that the world must not give up on the women of Afghanistan.
The italicized statement assumes that only those women who protested displayed courage. The courage those women who resist in a myriad of other ways was discounted. Although the resistance of these women should be applauded and appreciated this does not mean we should discount the resistance women enact in their everyday lives.
The Ottawa Citizen continues with:
The protest of Afghan women against the law is significant, because it demonstrates that the opposition to it is not mere western interference. Human rights are just that — human — and they apply in Muslim societies as anywhere else.
and
Cultural relativists argue that the NATO countries should not attempt to impose western values on Afghanistan. But the women in the streets of Kabul were not westerners.
“Not mere western interference”? It seems that The Ottawa Citizen is implying that at least part of the reason these women protested was western interference. Apparently, had the West not interfered this protest may never have occurred. Again, they make the assumption that had their not been some form of international influence these Afghani women would not have resisted in this manner. Oh, and thank you for reminding us that human rights apply in Muslim countries as well. However, this message would be handy to send to those countries that decide to invade and occupy Muslim countries as well.
The Ottawa Citizen article completely fails to acknowledge the role of American invasion and occupation in the deterioration of women’s rights in Afghanistan. In fact, they claim the opposite:
The very fact that women are calling for this law to be repealed, and are able to stand in the street to protest, is a sign that democratic progress has been made since the toppling of the Taliban.
In the rabble.ca interview with Joya we see something very different happening in Afghanistan. Joya says (emphasis mine):
This law is an inevitable outcome of the rule of the fundamentalists and in practice much more awful laws have been unofficially imposed on our people by the U.S.-backed warlords and drug-lords across Afghanistan — they have full control over our people to impose a ‘law of the jungle.’
This is far from the first time that Karzai has compromised with the fundamentalists and approved laws made by them. He has installed brutal and ignorant extremists in key posts; they were encouraged and now have enough power to pass laws of their design.
When the U.S. and its allies replaced the Taliban with the fundamentalists of the Northern Alliance in 2001, every Afghan knew that these terrorist bands were no different than the Taliban. Today, unfortunately, we can all clearly see this. The nature of the fake democracy ‘donated’ to Afghanistan by the U.S. government, which was trumpeted by mainstream Western media as an achievement, stands exposed before the world.
Afghan women have been betrayed in the past eight years under occupation. They are deeply feed up with the propaganda of the Afghan government and its international backers who invaded Afghanistan in the name of liberating women.
Therefore, we can see that in reality the Afghan women have not benefited from the occupation but rather are experiencing conditions similar to, if not worse than, those under the Taliban. As Krista wondered in her previous posts on this issue, why is this coming as such a surprise to Canadians? Why are we shocked? The intention of going into Afghanistan was never to “liberate” Afghani women. That was a pretext which made selling the invasion and occupation of a sovereign country easier to those in the West which gives women all their rights, treats women with full equality, and where women hold absolute equal power to men. This full equality is demonstrated by the equal numbers of female politicians to men in our parliament, equal numbers of female CEO’s to male CEO’s in our corporations, equal numbers of female supreme court judges to males ones, equal numbers of female media moguls to male ones, etc. Oh, wait. They don’t exist! That’s right, because female equality is non-existent in the West too. Yet, we assume we can make other societies egalitarian when ours isn’t even close to it?
Joya also states:
The Afghan government and its American guardians just say beautiful words about “liberation” of Afghan women, but in fact only some cosmetic changes are made to deceive the people of the world.
…
Obama called the new law “abhorrent,” but I think the U.S. government backing the fundamentalist warlords and imposing them on the Afghan people should be called “abhorrent” first.
I think the new policy of Obama will put our people and the whole region in a more dangerous situation than before. It shows clearly that the U.S. government is not interested in stability and peace in the region, and only wants a permanent military base in the region to threaten China, Iran, Russia and other Asian powers.
The Ottawa Citizen perpetuates the myth that Western invasion has somehow been beneficial for Afghani women and it is just those “barbaric” Afghani men who are hurting women. It continues to paint Muslim women as oppressed damsels in distress and Muslim men as barbarians and monsters, thus perpetuating this racist discourse. It shifts the blame away from Western forces who have backed and supported the oppressive and violent regimes, and onto those “barbaric” Muslim men, because of course only they are capable of such actions (sarcasm). Such reporting only continues to hide the complacency and agency of Western forces in the continued oppression of Afghani women and dupes Canadians into thinking that our presence in Afghanistan is somehow beneficent. The reality, as we hear from Afghani women themselves, couldn’t be further from the truth.
Sobia
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m118
“The courage those women who resist in a myriad of other ways was discounted. Although the resistance of these women should be applauded and appreciated this does not mean we should discount the resistance women enact in their everyday lives.”
GREAT point. I wish this got brought up more often.
Thanks Krista!
You guys are doing a fantastic job reporting on women in Afghanistan. Good critique of Canadian media.
Thanks Sahar!
You can delete my posts all you want. You remain ignorant. The adjective to describe a national of Afghanistan is “Afghan”, NOT Afghani, which, as I correctly pointed out before, is the unit of currency.
Thus, each time you write things like “The intention of going into Afghanistan was never to liberate Afghani women” means “The intention of going into Afghanistan was never to liberate currency women”.
And, in 25 words or less, please explain why the proposed rape is okay in marriage law was good for the Afghan women that would have been affected by it? Really easy to let things like that slide from the safety of secular, democratic Canada, isn’t it?
Did you notice my correct usage of the adjective “Afghan”?
@ Sean:
Your earlier comment on this post was deleted because it was totally irrelevant to the issue at hand. However, since it seems like this is really important to you, here goes.
Yes, “Afghani” is the word used for the currency used in Afghanistan, and “Afghan” tends to be the adjective used most often in English to describe people from Afghanistan. However, “Afghani” is also an adjective used in other languages, including by some people from the region, to mean “from Afghanistan”; “Afghan” is an anglicisation of that. Contrary to what you claim, it is not a word only used to refer to the currency.
Moreover, the Canadian Oxford Dictionary lists “a native or national of Afghanistan” as its first definition for the word “Afghani.”
That’s all the discussion we’re going to have about this wording. If you want to continue to celebrate your perceived superior language skills, you are free to do so on your own.
As for your suggestion that we somehow think the rape law is okay, please go back and read this and other articles ML has published on the subject. We are very clear in our condemnation of the law. This, however, does not negate the need for a critical eye towards the representations of the law or of the people of Afghanistan in our media.
I know you won’t publicly post this, as my screen saving admission at least caused you to admit to censorship, but for your own edification (you may want to use that dictionary of yours to look that up), the AFGHAN CONSTITUTION states that a citizen of the country is known as an AFGHAN.
See: http://www.afghan-web.com/politics/current_constitution.html#chapterone
Chapter 1, Article 4.
I think the country’s constitution trumps an infidel Canadian dictionary, don’t you?
Bloody hell, for a Muslim website, you really don’t know what you’re talking about, do you? I mean, a white, Christrian, male, privileged infidel teaching you the basics?
And yes, because your little blog actually publishes comments PRIOR TO BEING VETTED, I have already screen saved this!
Good night!
@ Sean:
I’m not sure exactly where the disagreement is. If you read my earlier comment, I acknowledged that “Afghan” is, indeed, a word commonly used in English to refer to people from Afghanistan. The dictionary also includes that definition. However, since more than one word can mean the same thing, “Afghan” and “Afghani” are both recognised as referring to people (or things, etc.) from Afghanistan.
So I’m not disputing that the Afghan constitution (and, in particular, the unofficial English translation from the link that you provided) uses the word “Afghan,” as that is indeed a correct word. At the same time, although I have not read through the entire constitution, I have a feeling that it probably doesn’t say that citizens of Afghanistan can ONLY EVER be referred to as Afghans and NEVER as Afghanis. The fact that “Afghan” is correct does not mean that “Afghani” is necessarily incorrect.
Just for the record, you will never hear me, or anyone on this blog, using the word “infidel,” unless we’re quoting someone. Not all Muslims freak out about people who aren’t Muslim or throw names at non-Muslims. In fact, most don’t.
We are a blog focused on analysing representations of Muslims in the Canadian media. This means that we are not, nor do we pretend to be, experts on Islam, or Afghanistan. Being Muslim doesn’t mean that we magically know (or should know) everything about every Muslim country.
Lastly, we have a comment moderation policy. We only publish comments that are relevant to our posts. If you are on topic, but disagree with us, we’ll publish it. If you are off topic, we won’t. This blog is a place for discussing media representations of Muslims, and we stick to that. If you call that censorship, so be it.
I let this last comment through because I felt like it was worth one more try to explain the concept of needing to be relevant. However, any further comments that erroneously criticise the wording that we use or the decisions we make about comment moderation (or any other discussions of an equally irrelevant nature) will be deleted. Frankly, your threat of saving the screen shot doesn’t do a lot to persuade me to publish the comment. If you want to show it as evidence to the blog police, go right ahead.
@ Sean Raleigh,
“Christian, male, privileged infidel”? Can you point out where anyone called you an “infidel?” It’s obvious that you’re stereotyping how Muslims perceive non-Muslims and it’s quite pathetic actually, considering that Christians are not “infidels” in Islam, but rather given the title “People of the Book.” You’re only exposing how ignorant and immature you are when you make colossally stupid remarks like that.
Wow, you screen saved your comment. That’s wonderful. Are you going to hang it on your refrigerator next?
[...] Lookout takes down The Ottowa Citizen for their coverage of the Afghan Shi’a [...]
Sean, I think you need to check your ego at the door. You seem intoxicated by it. Here’s a lesson for you. I’m from Afghanistan and know that people from the country are often referred to in different ways. If people of the region call Afghans Afghani, and even some Afghans themselves use Afghani. Who the hell ar you to correct anyone?
And it’s great to see you’re making such an intelligent contribution to the post by mistakenly pointing out language errors. Ironically, something you yourself have no clue about.
Run along now.
[...] Canada’s Saviour Complex is Getting Old: Afghani Women and Canada « Muslim Lookout The Ottawa Citizen perpetuates the myth that Western invasion has somehow been beneficial for Afghani women and it is just those “barbaric” Afghani men who are hurting women. It continues to paint Muslim women as oppressed damsels in distress and Muslim men as barbarians and monsters, thus perpetuating this racist discourse. It shifts the blame away from Western forces who have backed and supported the oppressive and violent regimes, and onto those “barbaric” Muslim men, because of course only they are capable of such actions (sarcasm). Such reporting only continues to hide the complacency and agency of Western forces in the continued oppression of Afghani women and dupes Canadians into thinking that our presence in Afghanistan is somehow beneficent. The reality, as we hear from Afghani women themselves, couldn’t be further from the truth. [...]