Afghan women and the Taliban - please take the time to read
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Friday, July 14, 2023 00:00
VIEWED: 9122
PAGE 1 of 5
Quote:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2007269,00.html#ixzz17Yh
Our cover image this week is powerful, shocking and disturbing. It is a portrait of Aisha, a shy 18-year-old Afghan woman who was sentenced by a Taliban commander to have her nose and ears cut off for fleeing her abusive in-laws. Aisha posed for the picture and says she wants the world to see the effect a Taliban resurgence would have on the women of Afghanistan, many of whom have flourished in the past few years. Her picture is accompanied by a powerful story on how Afghan women have embraced the freedoms that have come from the defeat of the Taliban — and how they fear a Taliban revival.
I thought long and hard about whether to put this image on the cover of TIME. First, I wanted to make sure of Aisha's safety and that she understood what it would mean to be on the cover. She knows that she will become a symbol of the price Afghan women have had to pay for the repressive ideology of the Taliban. We also confirmed that she is in a secret location protected by armed guards and sponsored by the NGO Women for Afghan Women. Aisha will head to the U.S. for reconstructive surgery sponsored by the Grossman Burn Foundation, a humanitarian organization in California. We are supporting that effort.
I'm acutely aware that this image will be seen by children, who will undoubtedly find it distressing. I apologize to readers who find the image too strong, and I invite you to comment on the image's impact.
But bad things do happen to people, and it is part of our job to confront and explain them. In the end, I felt that the image is a window into the reality of what is happening — and what can happen — in a war that affects and involves all of us. I would rather confront readers with the Taliban's treatment of women than ignore it. I would rather people know that reality as they make up their minds about what the U.S. and its allies should do in Afghanistan.
We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it. We do it to illuminate what is actually happening on the ground. As lawmakers and citizens begin to sort through the Wikileaks information about the war and make up their minds, our job is to provide context and perspective on one of the most difficult foreign policy issues of our time. What you see in these pictures and our story is something that you cannot find in those 91,000 documents: a combination of emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land and the consequences of the important decisions that lie ahead.
0FeTt
Aisha's story:Quote:
The Taliban pounded on the door just before midnight, demanding that Aisha, 18, be punished for running away from her husband's house. They dragged her to a mountain clearing near her village in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, ignoring her protests that her in-laws had been abusive, that she had no choice but to escape. Shivering in the cold air and blinded by the flashlights trained on her by her husband's family, she faced her spouse and accuser. Her in-laws treated her like a slave, Aisha pleaded. They beat her. If she hadn't run away, she would have died. Her judge, a local Taliban commander, was unmoved. Later, he would tell Aisha's uncle that she had to be made an example of lest other girls in the village try to do the same thing. The commander gave his verdict, and men moved in to deliver the punishment. Aisha's brother-in-law held her down while her husband pulled out a knife. First he sliced off her ears. Then he started on her nose. Aisha passed out from the pain but awoke soon after, choking on her own blood. The men had left her on the mountainside to die.
This didn't happen 10 years ago, when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. It happened last year. Now hidden in a secret women's shelter in the relative safety of Kabul, where she was taken after receiving care from U.S.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Bump. Because I keep hoping I can at least bring some sense of perspective and understanding to the situation in Afghanistan, and figure the more you know, the better you can choose what you believe.
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I knew about this.
I know about a lot worse, if you can imagine it, happening to women in many parts of the world.
It breaks my heart. It does.
But what's the answer?
Military invasion to all countries where a section of the population is routinely mutilated? We are so used to the expedience of violence, even in our own lives, that violence is easily the first resort that comes to mind.
The way I see it, you either accept violence as a solution and send our boys all over the world to protect these women forever...or....you look for a different solution.
People are very creative. Once they commit themselves to looking for a solution, commit themselves to certain parameters, they can find many different solutions.
Personally, I think the bottom line of alternative solutions is to give up our way of life. As Derrick Jensen described it, the problems are so pervasive that at some point, you have to realize you can't keep living your lifestyle and still address those problems. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
(Well, with military solutions, you can try. You can live your life and send someone else to die for your ideals. But that solution isn't sustainable, as we can witness with the destruction of our own economy.)
At some point, the violence is going to have to sicken us so much that we are willing to say, "I am ready to pursuit of the American dream, my surburban house, my picket fence, and give everything I have and will have to stand with my fellow human beings."
Once we have that foundation, we go over there ourselves, smuggle in loads of weapons, and give every woman a gun and teach her how to use it.
Or find some other equivalent way to empower those women.
I guarantee that you won't see pictures like these again.
--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Hello,
American lead won't cure Afghani ills.
--Anthony
Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Anthony,
I was only half kidding about arming those women.
I was completely serious about empowering them though. Arming them is only one way out of many.
--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Hello,
I wasn't criticizing your statement. I was making my own statement about being in the business of war to liberate oppressed people.
Social pressure is the only way to affect that kind of change without becoming oppressors and murderers ourselves.
--Anthony
Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
While I agree that violence isn't exactly the ideal solution, what do you do when one faction with weapons inflicts violence on the unarmed and defenseless? While I'm not crazy about it being us, someone has to stand up to these assholes.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
We see things through the prism of our own lives, which makes it a political discussion about when we should leave, if we should leave, etc. I don't have that luxury; I'm not sure whether I wish I did or not. But I'm afraid, for me, the issue must live in the greys...
Niki.
That's the hell of it. We see these things that are abhorrent to our very souls, and yet know that there's no way short of imposing an entirely foreign system of values on the places where they happen that would solve them. Do we decide that these crimes are just so horrid that whatever the solution, we have to apply it, or let them continue because ending them would be anathema to our ideal of self-determination?
Yes. There's a lot of grey out there.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:The only sustainable solution is for that "someone" to be the victims and potential victims. THEY have to be the ones to stand up for themselves, or the protectors/rescuers will have to be there forever.
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
While I'm not crazy about it being us, someone has to stand up to these assholes.
--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Hello,
Not to mention that in order to FORCE the change we want to see, we'd be doing things a lot worse than cutting off noses.
War is every hell you can think of, even when the participants strive to act in the most honorable and decent fashion.
--Anthony
Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME