A story about the rape of an Afghan woman prompts Tom Matlack to ask more questions about the nature of goodness.
On the front page of the New York Times this morning I read about the plight of a woman who had been imprisoned for adultery after being raped. Her case had become a national news item after it was made part of a documentary commissioned and then blocked by the European Union. It seemed that the grassroots movement to win justice had prevailed, only to find out that the terms of release were indeed barbaric.
“When the Afghan government announced Thursday that it would pardon a woman who had been imprisoned for adultery after she reported that she had been raped, the decision seemed a clear victory for the many women here whose lives have been ground down by the Afghan justice system.
But when the announcement also made it clear that there was an expectation that the woman, Gulnaz, would agree to marry the man who raped her, the moment instead revealed the ways in which even efforts guided by the best intentions to redress violence against women here run up against the limits of change in a society where cultural practices are so powerful that few can resist them.”
The story stirred more questions than answers for me:
What did we spend a trillion dollars on in Afghanistan if this treatment of women still goes on?
Do we as Americans have the right to judge another completely different culture when it comes to the treatment of women?
Why did the documentary film get black-balled instead of used as way to win the freedom this innocent woman?
Does the treatment of women as property in Afghanistan in any way provide a mirror for lingering attitudes here in American?
As a guy who likes to think about manhood and goodness what can I possibly make of this story?
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photo: isafmedia / flickr
About Tom Matlack
This legal ruling is a horrible horrible crime against humanity. But if you aren’t willing to look at the society surrounding it you’re missing the point.
Life in afghanistan is horrible, for women. Its also horrible for men. Look at the life expectancy statistics, women can expect to live until just over 40, men, about a year less. Its true that men don’t have to wear bourkas, but they are they ones who are expected to wear bombs. Men don’t get raped, they get killed worked to death instead.
Cherrypicking instances of violence and using them as a rallying call for subsection of humanity X is reprehensible and ignores half of the problem.
Peter Said – “Cherrypicking instances of violence and using them as a rallying call for subsection of humanity X is reprehensible and ignores half of the problem.”
I think it’s far more that half of the problem – more like 99%.
I also don’t agree with your caricaturisation that all Afghan men are suicide bombers! Most – the vast majority are Good Men, living in a culture they have been raised in and where they work and take home what they make to sustain their families. Subsistence Rural Framing leaves very little time for anything else.
It’s also worth considering how reports from such media as the NY Times are already known about in Afghanistan. Some there love to capitalize on media – and that story is al;ready being fed back to teach those Good Afghan Men just how US readers, political pundits and even women attack them as Barbaric – Evil and Subject to Hate by those shameless Americans who do not share the same values.
Dealing with different cultures is a steep learning curve – but it’s not just a one way learning curve – there is a big trough in the middle that so many from different countries both need to climb out of!
Some good news, and one explanation of why the documentary was blocked by the EU:
http://www.faithfreedom.org/features/news/jailed-afghan-rape-victim-freed-with-no-pre-conditions
Original BBC story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16003305