NOTE ADDED: 17th November 2001
The imminent fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan makes some of the below
irrelevant - Thanks be!
However, I am keeping this on my webpage to remind people of where
extremism can lead.
Perhaps this particular brand of fanaticism is doomed... but everybody,
and especially Muslims, must still use the lessons learned to ensure that
such barbarism is never repeated.
I still call upon every Muslim who reads this article to condemn the
barbarity that was committed in Afghanistan in the name of the Prophet.
By remaining silent on this isssue you only add to the mistaken belief
in the West that Islam represents a threat to civilization. Have
no fear that condemning the barbarity of the Taliban means you are somehow
siding with the enemies of Islam. A good Christian should always
condemn others who use the name of Christ in vain... (whether they be historical
errors such as the Inquisition or modern injust organizartions such as
the Ku Klux Klan, etc). Should not a good Muslim be equally vehement
in condemning those who justify evil acts in the name of Islam? Such
acts are surely more blasphemous than mere words by so called heretical
authors.
Women are not allowed to work or even go out in public without a male relative; professional women such as professors, translators, doctors, lawyers, artists and writers have been forced from their jobs and stuffed into their homes. The repression is becoming so widespread that it has reached emergency levels. In such an extreme totalitarian society there is no way to know the suicide rate with certainty, but relief workers are estimating that the suicide rate among women has increased significantly. Too many women have chosen to kill themselves rather than live in the Taliban's brave new world.
Among extreme measures in the country are the
following medieval barbarities: - homes where a woman is present must
have their windows painted so that she can never be seen by outsiders.
They must wear silent shoes so that they are never heard. Women live
in fear of their lives if they commit the slightest misbehavior.
Because they cannot work, those without male relatives or husbands are
either starving to death or begging on the street, even those who hold
Doctorates. There are almost no medical facilities available for
women and relief workers, in protest, have mostly left the country, taking
medicine and psychologists and other things necessary to treat the sky-rocketing
level of depression among women. At one of the few hospitals for
women, a reporter found nearly lifeless bodies lying motionless on top
of beds, wrapped in their burqua, unwilling to speak, eat, or do
anything, but slowly wasting away. Others had gone mad and were seen crouched
in corners, perpetually rocking or
crying, most of them in fear. When what
little medication that is left finally runs out, one doctor is considering
leaving these women in front of the president's residence as a form of
peaceful protest.
It is at the point where the term "human rights violations" has become an extreme understatement. Husbands now have the power of life and death over their women relatives, especially their wives and even an angry mob has just as much right to stone or beat a woman, often to death, for offending them in the slightest way.
Until 1996, women enjoyed relative freedom, to work, dress generally as they wanted and drive and appear in public alone. The rapidity of the transition to the new state of affairs is the main reason for the depression and suicides. Women who were once educators or doctors or who were simply used to basic human freedoms are now severely restricted and treated as sub-human in the name of a right-wing fundamentalism which justifies its actions by its peculiar interpretation of Islam.
Everyone has a right to a tolerable human existence.
If the West can threaten military force in Kosovo in the name of human
rights for the sake of ethnic Albanians, then every citizens of the
world can certainly express peaceful outrage at the oppression, murder
and injustice committed against women by the Taliban. The
current treatment of women in Afghanistan is completely UNACCEPTABLE and
opposition to it deserves support and action by the United Nations.
Thhe current situation should not be tolerated. Women's Rights is
not a small issue anywhere and it is UNACCEPTABLE for women in 1999 to
be treated as sub-human and as mere property. Equality and human
decency is a RIGHT not a freedom, whether one lives in Afghanistan or elsewhere".