Christian Protester The placard misquotes Psalm 7:ll, “God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.” You have to keep your gods straight, even if it is a monotheistic religion.

N. Lukanovich

Please God, let it be so. And if God isn’t listening (’cause he’s such a busy dude), maybe a good and kindly witch can put a pox on the Christian Right…but wait…it’s already been done. Obama won the election.

The sheen of evangelical Christian power has lost luster with the shift from Bush to Obama, so much so that many are imagining that the fevered anti-abortionist, homophobic, Johnny get your gun and then go sing in church types are simply vanishing into the air like magic. The previous leader of the ‘free’ world, Bush, revealed his utter disdain for the separation between church and state when he funded abstinence programs, cut all funding for medical clinics in developing nations that distribute condoms and give abortions, and cut federal funding for stem cell research.

Obama holds no obligations to conservative Christians and has already signed orders that overturn many of Bush’s directives: stem cell research has new life, funding for abstinence programs has just been cut, and funding is to be restored to overseas clinics. Some are disappointed that he has not overturned the ban on Medicaid funding for abortion, limiting pro-choice to those with means, but at least he isn’t making his decisions with one eye focused on the voting power of the Christian Right.

The election of Obama has given shivers to many right-wing evangelicals who have lost the political power to push for federal legislation that fits their ideology. In the minds of hopeful Democrats, the Christian Right has nearly become a bedtime story, a menacing force of the past that’s no longer a concern. Articles are cropping up everywhere about the decline of the Christian Right and James Carville, democratic strategist and political commentator, has written a book on the subject entitled “40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation”, co-authored by Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza. The unstoppable decimation of the Christian Right translates into clear skies ahead for Democrats. He points to statistics that show the transformation of American society, that show the married white Christian has become outnumbered and is no longer in the majority. In 1950, 4 of 5 Americans were married, Christian and white and now only 2 of 5 Americans are married, Christian and white.

The assumption is that the shrinkage of the religious base the Republicans have become so absolutely dependant upon will hobble the Party beyond the pale, but at the same time Republicans can not afford to detach themselves from conservative Christians as they are unable to attract more moderate or liberal minded Christian voters. Carville says that many “wise” Republicans agree with him in private conversations. Publicly, the Republican theme is that popularity with voters is cyclical, and they will soon bounce back. Carville counters this claim by claiming the cycles tend to be 40-45 years long, hence: Democrats will rule for the next forty years.

But as the numbers of married white Christians dwindled, as a group they identified more and more with the Republican Party; in l978, only 64% of these white married conservatives Christians voted Republican, compared to 90% in 2008. Unless the evangelical right creates its own party, right-wing evangelicals will continue to vote Republican since they consider Democrats to be a bunch of godless heathens that kill babies and such. A nearly guaranteed vote from 2 out of 5 Americans is no small thing and it may be shortsighted to so quickly dismiss the power this block of voters retains.

The landscape of the Christian Right has so morphed over time that is it easy to forget that Catholics, most of whom regularly ignore the more archaic rules of the Church, are officially included in this demographic. We generally think of evangelical churches when we think of the Christian Right, although some bishops and some Catholic groups are quite dramatic and noisy when it comes to the issues of stem cell research and abortion.

The rules of the Church are certainly conservative, but even the Vatican looks progressive in comparison with many of the evangelical Churches. The Vatican has, at least, abandoned the notion that the earth began 5 thousand years ago. The vast majority of Catholics (at least in the Western world) have inherited their link to the Church from their parents, a church that is rapidly losing members due to the Vatican’s antiquated stance on various issues: women’s ordination as priests, gay priests, abortion, birth control, the use of condoms for protection from STD’s, etc.

Younger generations are simply not as willing to take it all with a colossal grain of complacent salt. There are not a lot of new recruits to the Church, it is not a simple matter of crying out “I see JESUS”; you have to study and prove that you really and truly want to be a devout member of the Church. The process normally takes about two years; apparently the Church (at least in North America) is wary of fair weather wanna-be Catholics that could lose faith in the Church at the least provocation.

Evangelical churches, on the other hand, are not dependant upon inherited faith and new recruits are easy to find in a society chock a block full of the lost, lonely, and confused. Not only that, but evangelicals can be a lively bunch, singing and praying and thumping things, and speaking in tongues, and seeing Jesus and talking to Jesus, and the services can be a lot less boring than traditional churches, what with miracles taking place and all of this in some sort of massive arena or gargantuan church full of ecstatic people. It’s like a bizarre rave and the drug is Jesus. I have watched such scenes in documentaries with horror in my godless heart – but all you have to do is check out some of the tele-evangelists to get a clear idea on how powerful these preachers can be.

In other words, while traditional churches may be losing members more recently formed evangelical churches are gaining members. This is because they actively target those they perceive as vulnerable.

Many many moons ago, as a young traveler investigating the globe, I was target number one for evangelicals. They saw the perfect recruit – in their minds I was young, therefore naïve and vulnerable, alone and therefore lonely, and traveling, which is like wearing a sign that screams out “I’m running from something or seeking something in either case I surely need to find GOD.” The only thing I lacked to be a slam dunk recruit were two small children clinging to my skinny kneecaps with tears in their eyes while I begged in the streets.

I’ve never been much of a joiner, so I surveyed this onslaught of religious conviction from a detached and amused perspective. From the devout who formed a circle around me in Amsterdam to beseech the Lord to forgive my sins and give me guidance, to the 7th Day Adventist in California who threatened me with eternal damnation for my lack of interest in loving Jesus as my god, I have seen it all when it comes to the fervor of recruiters, and I have come to the conclusion that a lot of Jesus lovers hate everybody else. The kinder, gentler evangelical simply pities those of us who are too stupid to see the light and will therefore face eternal suffering.

The jubilant munchkins singing ‘The Christian Right is Dead’ theme song seem to have forgotten that in several states the evangelical right hovers like an oppressive and discontented grandmother. The injection of cherry picked Christian morals into state legislation has not ceased. Not all laws stem from the federal government. Marriage laws vary from state to state (including the controversial issue of gay marriage), as does abortion legislation, regulations governing birth control clinics, and sentencing of convicts (including the death penalty); there are so many areas in which states have control it’s astonishing that the leaders of America have been so successful at nation building.

There is currently a dire struggle in some states between creationists who want to see intelligent design taught at all schools, and those who prefer schools to only teach Darwin’s theory of evolution. The fact that intelligent design, or creationism, is taught in some schools in America is mind boggling. This is the kind of thing that has Europeans in stitches, wondering how on earth America got to be such a powerful nation.

Every society or culture that has chosen faith over inquiry stalls scientific, social and moral progress and thereby weakens their position in the world. Perhaps the jubilant ones are right and this surge of fundamentalist faith in America is coming to an end. It would most certainly be a good thing for women, who do not rank very high in evangelical churches led by those who would take America back to an era when women stayed at home, made babies, and obeyed their man.

Original Photo Above Photoshopped Photo Below

N. Lukanovich

Two weeks ago, two ultra-orthodox Israeli newspapers removed the images of Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver from the recent photograph of Binyamin Netanyahu’s new 30 member cabinet. The Tel Aviv based daily Yated Neeman moved two of the male ministers to cover up the women (got to keep ‘em covered) and Shaa Tova, a weekly paper, simply blackened them out. It would be screamingly funny if it weren’t for the reality of limitations on women’s roles in ultra-orthodox Judaism.
Mainstream Israeli papers had great fun mocking the incident, one headline from the Yedioth Ahronoth reading “Find the Lady”. The reason for the removal of these upstart women is a thoroughly serious one from the ultra-orthodox point of view: images of women are a violation of female modesty. So immodest that campaign posters of Tzipi Livni, who nearly won the election running for the Kadima centrist party, were vandalized and defaced in areas near ultra-orthodox neighborhoods during the February election. The mere notion of a woman being in such a high ranking position in the public sphere is most definitely crossing the boundaries of decency, which is why the ultra-orthodox papers never mention Tzipi Livni’s first name.

Luckily, for secular Israelis, the proportion of ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel is very small, a mere 8-15 percent. The views of ultra-orthodox are nothing close to representative of Israeli society. But unfortunately, thanks to the system of proportional representation, they wind up with more power in government than many would like, particularly when a coalition is formed by a right wing party, like the one Binyamin Netanyahu just cobbled together to form his government.

Tensions between the ultra-orthodox and secular segments of Israel’s society have grown to the point that some neighborhoods are becoming pockets of conflict between those who cry foul at “anti-semitism” and those who fear “ultra-orthodox takeover”. Many secular residents of Kiryat Hayovel, in southwest Jerusalem, are so fearful about the influx of Haredim into their neighborhood that one month ago several residents interrupted a prayer service of a few dozen Haredim in an apartment on Hankte Street. The Haredi tenant has permission from the American owner of the apartment, but the secular residents are upset with the makeshift synagogue and say they will interrupt services even if they are moved to another apartment. They fear the imposition of new rules for the neighborhood that would affect their freedoms and secular lifestyle, such as the ban of vehicular traffic on the Shabbat and Jewish holidays.

The dispute has gone to court and there is currently a temporary injunction against using the residence as a synagogue. The chairman of the Meretz city council list, Pepe Allalo, referred to Ramat Eshkol, a neighborhood that shifted from a secular character to ultra-orthodox. According to Allalo, all of the secular residents have moved from the neighborhood and he is concerned the same thing could happen in Kiryat Hayovel. One of the organizers of the prayer service, Haim Waldman, says they have been holding services for two years in various apartments and feels that it is a mere handful of secular residents that are trying to inflame the tensions in Kiryat Hayovel, and says the Haredim will continue the struggle to conduct prayer services in the neighborhood no matter what the decision of the court.

In Jeruselem, there are 30 ‘mehadrin’ buses which are not theoretically sex-segregated, but in practice women must sit in the back and enter and exit through the back doors. But these thirty buses are not enough for the Haredim and the rule is expected to be followed on many other buses. On November 24, 2008 a 50 year old American-Jewish woman, Miriam Shear, was attcked by Haredim for refusing to sit in the back section of the bus. She was visiting Israel for five weeks and traveled the same Egged No. 2 bus every morning to pray at the Wailing Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.

The bus is not one of the mehadrin buses, but nonetheless, it was segregated. Thinking perhaps of Rosa Parks, Ms. Shear sat in the front every time she rode the bus. She was admonished every couple of days, sometimes politely, sometimes not, until the day a Haredi man spat in her face. Like every good American woman who believes she should stand up for herself, she spat back. He then attacked her and other Haredi men joined in the fray. She was punched and kicked by 4-5 men until the bus stopped and she disembarked with the help of someone who took her to the police station.

The driver claims nothing happened, but she has a witness, Yehoshua Meyer, who says her account is entirely accurate and Ms. Shear has no intention of letting the ‘incident’ blow over. She has been contacted by Shatil, the New Israel Fund’s Empowerment and Training Center for Social Change; Kolech, a religious women’s forum; the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the legal advocacy arm of the local Reform movement; and the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA). Her case may become part of a petition over the legality of sex-segregated buses that will be submitted by IRAC to the High Court of Justice against the Transportation Ministry.

Jews, Muslims, and Christians, like most religious groups or sects within the groups, have suffered oppression and persecution at different times in history (to varying extents – Jews have suffered the most persecution from men of other faiths, and Christians topped the charts at hunting each other down during the Inquisition, Reformation and Counter-Reformation), and yet there are still adherents of all three religions that have no problem whatsoever denying women, persons within their communities, equal rights. All three religions (which are closely connected, Judaism being the first, Christianity the second, and Islam the third), were developed during times in which the phrase human rights didn’t exist. Men and women had duties and roles to observe, and the roles of men placed them above women.

The majority of followers of all three religions recognize the need for equal rights and reforms to give women equality have already occurred and are continuing to take place where needed. The biggest difference between Judaism and its offshoots, Christianity and Islam, is that it is not an evangelical religion, and so the resulting numbers of ultra-orthodox Jews compared to fundamentalist Christians or Muslims is miniscule, so small that the indignity toward women amongst this population is largely ignored.

But some in Israel are concerned about what Galia Golan-Gild, a professor of government at the Herzliva Interdisciplinary Centre, calls “the creeping religiosity” in Israeli society. According to Golan-Gild, “this sector simply does not believe that women should have a public life, or even vote”. There are currently 21 women politicians in the 120 seat Knesset – the legislative branch of the Israeli government – the highest number of women to date.

In June, 2008, a girl from Beitar Illite was taken to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem for burns after having acid thrown on her by an unknown man. The ‘modesty guard’ – a group formed to police modesty in ultra-orthodox neighborhoods – was suspected of being behind the attack on the 14 year old, as both she and her 18 year old sister had been suffering harassment from the group for some months prior. On the day of the attack she was wearing loose fitting long pants and a short sleeved shirt, which is apparently not modest enough for some.

A secular woman living in an ultra-orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem was attacked in August, 2008, by a man police suspect was hired by the modesty guard. To view a video of an interview with the woman click on the Haaretz TV web page.

N. Lukanovich

Video images taken by a cell phone last month in the Swat Valley have triggered outrage in Pakistan and shocked many around the world. The original video shows two public floggings by the Taliban, the first is a man flogged on suspicians of gay sex, the second is a 17 year old girl flogged for immoral behavior (reports say she refused to marry a Taliban militant). The images first appeared on Britain’s Channel 4 News as part of a report on the Swat Valley by Paton Walsh and were later broadcast on Pakistani news stations. The girl, Chaand Bibi, is held face down on the street by two men, one holds her feet, one holds her shoulders, and another man delivers 34 lashes.

Since the video has been aired in Pakistan it has caused no shortage of anger amongst politicians and activists who were against the peace/Sharia law deal that effectively handed over the Swat Valley to the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan). Asma Jahangir, head of the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan, told journalists in Lahore that this type of justice is “intolerable [...]. This is not just the flogging of the girl; it is an indication of what is in store for us [...] The Taliban are forcing their brand of Islam on us, and we have to resist that.”

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) staged massive protests over the flogging and people across Pakistan displayed black flags and wore black armbands in solidarity with the MQM to condemn the flogging on Sunday. Schools have joined the protests; for example, 1700 female students of the Dawood Public School (DPS) held a protest rally on Tuesday. They chanted “We want peace”, “Stop atrocities against humanity!” and “Save women!”.

Clearly, the assurances on the part of officials in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani that the TTP’s form of Islamic law will be mild were not to be believed, as anyone with any knowledge of the region already knew, including these politicans who now claim to be shocked by the video. (Sharia is not actually a system of laws, it is nothing like canon law in the Catholic Church, it is a guideline of ethics, and ‘fiqh’ is the system of jurisprudence, man made laws based on interpretation of the Quran and the Sunnah, and this is why so-called Islamic law varies so greatly in different regions of the world.)

The Times of India reported on April 4 that the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has ordered a court hearing into the affair. The inquiry began on April 6, with Chaudhry lambasting senior government officials for their inability to deliver a satisfactory explanation of the affair (Chaudhry was was restored to his position last month after two years of street protests on his behalf). Chaand Bibi did not appear as requested by the Chief Justice on the first day of the inquiry and according to the statement of a policeman from the Swat she denies the flogging took place. Her denial triggered rumours that the video had been fabricated to smear the Taliban and ruin the peace deal, but Muslim Khan, a Taliban spokesman, confirmed the veracity of the video. According to Dawn News, he said the woman received a light sentence and that “she would have been shot,” if the Taliban were really in charge. He claimed the incident took place two months ago, but village residents have stated it was a mere 2 weeks ago, which means it took place after the peace deal was negotiated, not before. Chaand Bibi’s denial of the incident is not surprising; she is no doubt afraid of reprisals and does not want to be permanently branded as a troublemaker.

The horror and shock over the video by those who have little knowledge of what has being happening in the Swat is understandable, but for high ranking officials in Pakistan, the dismay is surreal. There have been countless reports of floggings, and people in the Swat Valley have suffered far worse at the hands of the TTP; it would appear that it is only when video footage of the violent delivery of so-called justice in Swat is aired in the West that a flogging gets any attention from Pakistani officials (see The Obliteration of Human Rights in the Swat Valley). It’s also more than a little dismaying that no one seems to care in the slightest about the man who was flogged on suspicions of gay sex who was shown in the same broadcast by Channel 4 News.

The Gulf Daily News reported on April 1 that a man accused of burglary was shot in the head by masked men while people stood in the street and watched. Anyone suspected of dealing drugs or being a drug addict is summarily flogged on the street. Women are no longer allowed to go to public places like markets to buy food and girls over 13 are not allowed to attend school (there has been no information in the press as to where the younger girls are attending school since 150-200 of their schools were fire bombed in the months leading up to the ‘deal’). The Taliban has placed signs on barbershop windows warning men not to shave, and all music shops are closed. When Pakistani politicians involved in the peace deal claimed that Taliban justice in the Swat would be nothing like the Taliban in Afghanistan, many suspected otherwise. It appears that the disbelievers in the magical wonderful new world of the Swat have been right.

The peace deal was brokered with the cleric Sufi Mohammad (former leader of the banned TNSM which was replaced by the TTP while Mohammad was imprisoned from 2001-2008), who is now leaving the region in protest because the government has failed to finalize the accord by signing the agreement into law. President Zardari has not yet done so as he set a condition for peace in the region before full implementation. At a news conference in Mingora, Sufi Mohammad threw blame on the government in advance for future bloodshed in the Swat, “I am ending my peace camp in Swat and if any bloodshed occurs, President Zardari and the federal government will be responsible.”

Several courts have already been set up and are in use by the Taliban, they are already implementing their form of justice, and the Taliban has continued to engage in violence. They have claimed responsibility for 2 suicide bombings last weekend, killing 26 Shiite Muslims by a mosque in Chakwal, Punjab province, and 8 people in Islamabad. Just yesterday 5 people were killed in an attack by Taliban militants from Swat in Buner. The complaints of Sufi Mohammad ring false; it is no more than public relations effort to protect the Taliban from blame for a failed peace accord.

The Washington Post, in an article headlined “Congress Moves to Set Terms for Pakistan Aid” reported on April 4 that a bill sponsored by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chariman Howard Berman would give Pakistan 7.5 billion in economic and development assistance and another 3 billion over 5 years to train the Pakistani military, sets conditions on the type of military equipment and the ways in which it can be used. It also requires reports on progress against insurgents. A similar bill is being drafted in the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

There are however, no conditions in terms of forcing the Pakistani government to protect human rights, especially critical for women, children, and homosexuals, and while it may not be realistic to expect that the Pakistani government is able to protect such rights through the use of military power in regions where the TTP has terrorized the populace, they should not have agreed to a deal that officially sanctions the use of a brutal justice system for regions within Pakistan, a justice system that disregards the right of the accused to have their day in court and meets out punishments based on accusations.

For the U.S. to ignore that the peace deal in the Malakand, including Swat, less than 100 kilometers from Islamabad, cedes control to a group of men that care nothing about human rights but only their perverse interpretation of Islamic law is more than astonishing. The near complete silence on the issue of human rights makes the current outrage about President Karzai signing separate legislation for Shiite family law in Afghanistan seem more political than heartfelt. The concern of the U.S. government has been a miltiary concern, based on the fear that capitulating to insurgents in the Malakand will lead to capitulation elsewhere in Pakistan.

When ministers in Pakistan’s central government have being involved in such things as presiding over tribal courts that give away girls 2-5 years old as compensation, one wonders if the U.S. is missing an opportunity to demand that the Pakistani government at least protect human rights in law and investigate any members of government who are suspected of ignoring international human rights. It would seem that Pakistan has the U.S. by ‘the balls’, that the U.S. needs Pakistan as an ally so desperately that no matter what goes on in Pakistan there will be no repercussions in forms of aid. (See also More News About the Peace Deal in Pakistan)

Afghan Women Modified Digital Photo Lukanovich www.lukanovich.com

N. Lukanovich

A day after the news that Karzai won his extension to the presidency news broke out that he had signed new legislation last month called the Shi’ite Personal Status Law in Afghanistan. The legislation essentially legalizes rape within marriage, forces a woman to ask permission to leave the home, to work, and to go to school (unless the woman was already working or in school and this right was part of the marriage contract). Women can not have custody of children or inherit immovable property from their husbands.

The news hit the press March 31, during the NATO summit in Strasbourg, France, while leaders of the Western allies were discussing boosting the mission in Afghanistan. This was more than bad timing for Karzai who spent his time defending the law and trying to diffuse the outrage of NATO leaders: “We understand the concerns of our allies in the international community. Those concerns may be out of an inappropriate or not so good translation of the law or a misinterpretation of this. [...] If there is anything that is of concern to us then we will definitely take action in consultation with our ulema (senior clerics) and send it back to the parliament … This is something we are serious about.” Karzai seems to forget the female parliamentarians in Afghanistan who opposed the legislation, who doubtless had no problems with translations or misinterpretations.

If Karzai is serious about anything, it’s remaining the President of Afghanistan. His support of the law appears to be a political ploy to court Shiite leaders and political parties, whom he needs to win the upcoming election. Member of Parliament Fawzia Koofi is one of those pointing a finger at Karzai for abandoning women rights set in the constitution to garner votes: “We have elections coming up in the summer and President Karzai’s dependency on these fundamentalist groups is growing – and also he wants to have the support of the extremist Shia groups.”

Many Afghan human rights activists have been fighting this legislation, and one can only assume they too, are not having translation difficulties or perceiving the law through ‘Western eyes’. One of those who campaigned against the law is Soraya Sobhrang, commissioner for women’s rights at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, who has criticized the previous silence from Western leaders and told the BBC that the law is “disastrous for women’s rights in Afghanistan. [...] This law legalises all violence which happens against women in Afghanistan. [...] They will lose their rights we have in our constitution.”

A more detailed look at the legislation:

Article 47
(1) Guardianship of children is granted to father and paternal grandfather, both of which are of the same value, and do not cancel the effect of each other. In case of non agreement on the affair of guardianship by father and grandfather, the guardianship by grandfather holds prime importance.
(2) Father and grandfather, in the absence of each other, can authorize someone to be the guardian of the child, but in case of one of them being alive, other guardian can not be chosen.

Article 132
(3) The couple should not commit acts that create hatred and bitterness in their relationship. The wife is bound to preen for her husband, as and when he desires.
(4) The husband, except when travelling or ill, is bound to have intercourse with his wife every night in four nights. The wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.
(7) The wife is bound to perform household works only if it was put down as a condition in the marriage document, otherwise, wife is not bound to performing household chores.

Article 133
(1) Husband is responsible for the family maintenance (financially), unless this right is given to the wife due to husband’s mental disorder or a decision of the court.
(2)If the wife was a working woman before marriage, and the marriage document does not condition her to stop working, the husband cannot stop her from work, unless her work affects the interest of the family or the position of either wife or husband in a negative way.
(3) Husband can stop the wife from any unnecessary, unIslamic act.
(4) Wife cannot leave the house without the permission of the husband, unless due to any serious pressure or difficulty and to address that.

Article 166
Divorce should be given in the presence of two fair/ just men. If later found that both or one of those men were not fair/ just, the divorce is cancelled.

Article 177
(1) The husband is bound to provide maintenance to his wife.
(2) The wife does not have the right to the provision of maintenance by the husband unless she agrees to have intercourse with him and he gets an opportunity for doing so. (4) Obediance, readiness for intercourse and not leaving the house without the permission of the husband are the duties of the wife, violation of every one of them will mean disobediance to the husband.

Article 226
(7) Husband inherits both moveable and immovable property from a deceases wife, but wife can inherit only moveable property. She will also inherit from the construction/ buildings built on the land owned by the husband, the trees or other immoveable property. Husband’s family can pay the price of the inherited property to the wife. She also inherits from the water of the wells and canals.

Obligatory sex is reinforced in Article 135: “a wife is obliged to fulfill the sexual desires of her husband,” and Article 27 defines the age of maturity for girls to be set when they have their first period (which could be as early as 9 or 10) and for boys at 15. Amendments made to the law to calm down the outrage within Afghanistan show that the age of marriage for women was raised to 16 from nine and that a woman would be allowed to leave her home unaccompanied for medical treatment, to go to work or for her education.

What about the Sunni majority? The Taliban are Sunni and and family law legislation for Sunni Muslims is currently in the works. It is hard to believe that the family law for Sunnis will give women more freedoms than the Shiite women.

It might behoove Karzai, as he spouts off about inappropriate reactions, to recognize that the nations spending billions in Afghanistan are democracies led by leaders who need the support of voters who will not tolerate supporting a government that creates legislation which so blatantly flouts standards of international human rights.

John Hutton, British Defence Secretary, told the BBC on Friday that Afghanistan’s government “must abide by international agreements that it has entered into willingly.” In a statement issued on Thursday by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay requested the law be rescinded, and wrote “for a new law in 2009 to target women in this way is extraordinary, reprehensible and reminiscent of the decrees made by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the 1990s.”

NATO leaders have made their concerns clear, whether or not their statements will be backed by action if Karzai ignores the demands of the NATO leaders and leaves the legislation in place remains to be seen.

Comments by Sayed Hussain Alem Balkhi, and MP who helped push the law through parliament, reveal the mentality of many Afghan lawmakers (some of whom are warlords). He claims the reports are “propaganda” and that the law protects Shiite women by giving them the right to leave their homes “for medical treatment” and “to see her parents without the permission of her husband.” Canadians have to ask themselves if we should be losing soldiers and participating in a mission in which women and children have become collateral damage while we do nothing to provide security to women who are trying to enjoy the rights they currently have under the constitution. Canada has spent over 10 billion in the war and has been fighting in the most dangerous region of Afghanistan, incurring the highest casualty rate amongst the coalition forces.

The war has neither decimated the Taliban in Afghanistan nor quashed Al Queda, and neither group was confined to Afghanistan in the first place. Pakistan, for example, who is enjoying massive aid from the US, effectively handed over control of the Malakand Division (including the Swat Valley) to the Taliban through a peace deal negotiated in January which included the decimation of women’s rights. The strength of religious conservatives in Pakistan and the expansion of areas that are Taliban strongholds are growing exponentially.

At a certain point, when considering Canada’s participation in Afghanistan, the question becomes: What’s the point? If NATO is going to continue to occupy Afghanistan there needs to be a change not only in military strategy, but in the approach to security for the women the leaders of NATO make such fuss over when the media gets hold of a story.

Women have not gained security since the invasion, they have lost husbands and children or their own lives, what rights they have are clearly tenuous and enjoyed mainly by women living in Kabul, women harassed by death threats are given no protection, women journalists, police officers, etc., have been assassinated, and there have been several incidents of young girls being attacked on their way to school (see Women in Afghanistan – Before and After the Taliban). For the Karzai government to so glibly demolish the rights Shiite women had under the constitution is indeed outrageous. It puts women in the position of lacking both safety from warfare and basic human rights.

NATO allies should unequivocally demand that Karzai rescind this law, and if the law remains it will become a thorn that could decimate what support is left for the war amongst Western nations. NATO leaders also need to recognize that if they occupy a nation and give women more freedoms, they have a responsibility to protect women and girls that use those freedoms. Perhaps part of the problem is that women’s rights are brand spanking new to Western nations if looked at through the eye of history.

In fact, spousal sexual assault only became a crime in Canada in 1983. It wasn’t until 1993 that marital rape was considered a human rights violation by the UN Commission for Human Rights. When Stockwell Day, Canadian Minister of International Trade voiced his discontent with the new laws, he stated: “The onus is upon the government of Afghanistan to live up to its human-rights responsibilities, absolutely including the rights of women.” Glory be the day when women’s rights won’t be included with human rights, but will be considered simply: human rights.

Fields of Antidepressants Digital Photo Collage Lukanovich www.lukanovich.com

N. Lukanovich

Once upon a time there lived a man in West Virginia who lamented the deaths of the men he had killed. He was a trucker who gave me a ride, over two decades ago, from Modesto, California to Flagstaff, Arizona, a Vietnam vet trapped in a state of pitiable remorse, agonizing over the faces of 25 men, locked without respite in moments he could not undo. “I remember each and every one of them,” he said, then asked me to hold his hand for comfort as we traveled through the night and he talked and talked and told his stories and tried to ease the anguish that had crippled his dreams and transformed his life into a never ending quest to forget. Since he had returned from his tour of duty, he had been able to do nothing but drive and remember.

When a nation sends it’s children off to war, to fight whatever devil that may lurking in another nation or pounding on the borders of home and hearth, there is talk of soldiers being killed in action, of the wounded, there is even muted discussions about post-traumatic stress. What is never spoken of with any clarity, or the brutality of truth, is the undeniable fact that young men (and now women) are sent off to become killers.

Post-traumatic stress related to military actions is no doubt caused by an accumulation of horrors, such as the fears of being killed, being witness to death and destruction, losing fellow soldiers, the inability to integrate back into society, marital problems, but that soldiers may be damaged by the grisly knowledge that they have taken human life is rarely, if ever, mentioned. There is a silent agreement to avoid the discussion of soldiers who are so wounded by killing others that they find it impossible to return to a normal life.

For some, perhaps it is enough to know that they are fulfilling their patriotic duty; they have been desensitized successfully or their breadth of conscience is so slender they devote little time to considering the impact of their actions. Outside factors play a critical role in how easily a soldier may justify killing in combat: the period in history, how death is viewed in one’s culture, the attitude of one’s immediate family; all combine to influence how fiercely one believes in the cause or necessity of the war. Is it killing in self-defense, or an offensive with incontrovertible reason? Or is it a battle based on disputable justifications?

There are statistics for those killed in action, those who are wounded (less spoken of), for those who have sought help for post traumatic stress, but there are no figures, there is no documented evidence of the numbers of soldiers who have killed during a war or military offensive. We live in an era in which ideals about rights of individuals have become sacrosanct, we learn that killing is horrifically immoral without valid and urgent reason, but what do we as a society consider to be valid and urgent? Western nations, in particular, are comprised of populations that are not in cohesive agreement on what situations justify killing.

In the U.S., there is much disagreement on the validity of the Iraq war and in Canada, there is a similar disagreement about the decision to support the U.S. in Afghanistan. There are those who believe that there is no justification for fighting wars on foreign soil, others may believe that stopping genocide is the only reasonable cause, and at the other end of the spectrum there are many who claim that any possible threat is worth fighting. But I have yet to see the headline “4 more coalition soldiers became killers today,” with an analysis of the consequential post-traumatic stress. Even articles on post-traumatic stress do not discuss the impact of taking human lives. We can not expect young men who grew up in a society that tests the safety of everything from car seats to the plastic used in water bottles to easily transform into men that kill without conscience.

The newspapers report the death of their nation’s soldiers (or ‘troops’, a less human term), but rarely report the total number of casualties of the ‘enemy’, and only sporadically mention deaths of innocent women, children, and men, for whom the term collateral damage has been coined. What about the soldiers who fight from the sky? Does not being witness to the faces of those you kill lessen the despair? Or is it better to know you’ve killed another soldier rather than inflicted this so-called collateral damage. How exactly does a man who flies far above the earth feel when he learns that the bomb he has dropped has blown apart a wedding party killing 30 women and children?

While statistics on the number of soldiers who have killed are nonexistent, statistics on deaths of civilians, Iraqi troops, insurgents, and according to some, even U.S. soldiers, are varied and fraught with misleading methodology. The most quoted source for civilian deaths in Iraq is the organization Iraq Body Count, which only includes deaths that have been reported in at least two English language newspapers or newscasts. This obviously excludes all non-media reported deaths, and any deaths reported in newspapers of other languages, such as the main languages spoken in Iraq: Arabic, Kurdish, Assyrian and Armenian.

The most recent number from the IBC is 91,297 – 99,679 civilian deaths. This is dramatically lower than the estimate of 426,369 – 793,663 civilian deaths from the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom until July 31, 2006, reported in the article “Mortality after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq”, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, based on a study done by researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Baghdad’s Al-Mustansiriya University. CNN reports that since the beginning of the war till March 25, 2009, there have been 4,262 US soldiers killed in Iraq, and at least 31,131 U.S. troops wounded in action (based on figures from the Pentagon). The total number of coalition troops killed in the war to date is 4,579. Even if one uses the low estimates produced by the IBC, the number of civilian deaths is staggering in comparison.

There can be honor in fighting to protect the innocent, but it is difficult to feel heroic when there is fragmented belief in the battle. There are few parades for those fighting wars with dubious imperatives. The Vietnam War became a war against young men who didn’t want to go to war; young men were vilified as unpatriotic draft dodgers if they left the U.S. to escape the prospect of becoming killing machines. The draft has thus far been avoided for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, partly by deploying the National Guard, partly by extending tours of duty, and partly by multiple deployments.

The Army reported that 24 U.S. soldiers committed suicide in January, 2009, compared to 16 who died in combat (7 are confirmed suicides, and the Army expects investigations to confirm the other 17 as suicides). The number of suicides increased 6 fold from last January, 2008. The increase is suspected to be related to multiple deployments; soldiers are often redeployed while they are in the midst of undergoing treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and the stigma of seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress prevents many other soldiers from seeking the help they need. Adding to the problems, according to Col. Kathy Platoni, chief clinical psychologist for the Army Reserve and National Guard, is the excessive use of antidepressants amongst soldiers in combat. An increase in suicidal thoughts is one of the possible side effects of antidepressants, especially for those under the age of 24.

In March of 2008, Army psychiatrist Colonel Charles Hoge told Congress that a staggering 30% of troops suffer mental health problems by their 3rd deployment. A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine revealed that one third of the veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan seen at Veterans Affairs facilities from 2001-2005 were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress, depression, and/or psycho-social disorders (such as problems with domestic violence, homelessness, etc.).

My beleaguered Vietnam vet is probably still driving without respite. After his return from Vietnam he spent one year drunk, and then became a trucker who only pauses for mandatory breaks. He has no wife, no children, no close friends and no connection with any community. I have frequently thought of him over the years; he made an indelible impression on my young mind: his gnome like body hunched behind the wheel, his insistence on telling his story, his need for absolution looming like a giant in the headlights. He asked for nothing but sympathy, and gave me this story of himself, a brief visit into the mind of an anguished veteran, a reminder of what can become of a soldier.

COMMENTS:

I found this to be a very moving piece. Your encounter with the Vietnam vet really brought to light an intimate view of the personal devastation of war for those young people forced to become killers.
Maggie Fraser
March 30