If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Abroad

Last week, American people spoke at the polls. The message of the election seems to indicate that in addition to disapproval of what the administration and Congress are currently doing in the Iraq, there is not wide-spread support for a right-wing utopia that resembles something out of The Handmaid’s Tale. However, supporters of the right-wing dream of a society ruled by extreme religious values should take heart: Bush and the neo-cons may have lost Iraq, but their policies are ensuring the expansion of theocracy in the Middle East, with chilling effects on women’s rights (aka human rights).

Page A8 of the November 7 (election day in the US) New York Times contained a story on increasing violence against women in Palestine by “family members and intimate partners,” as per a new report by Human Rights Watch. The report notes that “while there is ‘increasing recognition’ by the authorities of violence against woman and girls, ‘little action has been taken to seriously address these abuses.’” A very large part of the problem is due to outdated laws based on fundamental religious beliefs. For example, “rape laws distinguish between victims who are virgins and those who are not” and “the laws provide reduced penalties to men who kill or harm female relatives who are accused of adultery, allow only male relatives to file incest charges on behalf of minors and absolve from criminal prosecution rapists who agree to marry their victims and remain married for three years.” Human Rights Watch also takes into account the current sociopolitical situation in its report, indicating that current fighting with Israel and the occupation of the West Bank obviously reduces the resources available for women and girls.

What does this situation have to do with the Bush administration? His blanket support for any Israeli policies – no matter how egregiously wrong-headed and unjust - inflames the situation. No serious negotiations toward a two-state solution have taken place in years, and as long as Bush is in office, it is unlikely that any ever will. A two-state solution does not fit in with Bush’s fundamentalist Christian belief that Israel must reoccupy its former territory so that the messiah can return. Aside from various religious factions battling for their own version of utopia, a two-state solution is the only way to stabilize the region (the recently deceased Ellen Willis wrote an excellent essay on the need to recognize two-states) and hopefully improve the status of life for Palestinian women.

Bush’s connection to other Middle Eastern theocracies are more direct. When it was politically expedient to invade Afghanistan, Bush moved away from his prior support of the Taliban - giving them monetary aid in their quest to destroy poppies and the opium trade (as well as ancient Buddhist statues) despite their heinous human rights violations – and trotted out Laura Bush to talk about the condition of women under their rule.

We don’t hear much about that these days, do we? In her anguished post about the situation in Afghanistan and Canada’s alignment with American military goals, Kian at Liberal Debutante wrote:

And what about the condition of women and girls in Afghanistan today? Isn't this mission supposed to protect women and girls to get back their rights? As Afghan woman's activist and legislator Malalai Joya recently noted, "Contrary to the propaganda in certain Western media, Afghan women and men are not 'liberated' at all", because the present government has continued many of the repressive policies towards women and girls. She noted at the Federal NDP convention in September 2006: "I think that no nation can donate liberation to another nation. Liberation should be achieved in a country by the people themselves. The ongoing developments in Afghanistan and Iraq prove this claim."

Amnesty International noted in 2005 that: "Violence against women and girls in Afghanistan is pervasive; few women are exempt from the reality or threat of violence. Afghan women and girls live with the risk of abduction and rape by armed individuals; forced marriage; being traded for settling disputes and debts; and face daily discrimination from all segments of society as well as by state officials....Strict societal codes, invoked in the name of tradition and religion, are used as justification for denying women the ability to enjoy their fundamental rights, and have led to the imprisonment of some women, and even to killings. Should they protest by running away, the authorities may imprison them." (From Afghanistan: Women still under attack - a systematic failure to protect, May 30, 2005).

It is not that religion itself is inherently bad. The problem is how it is interpreted, which interpreters have the power to enforce it, and who must obey the interpretation. Far be it from me to suggest that these policies against women are what the right-wing would like to see implemented in the US, but it is a very slippery slope. When pharmacists are allowed to deny women legal medications because it is against the religion of the pharmacist; when women who are victims of rape or incest are forced to carry a pregnancy to term because some religious groups believe that life begins at conception, and damn the consequences to the woman (she asked for it anyway, as we all know that women who are raped can’t conceive); when marriage is legally defined by biblical descriptions (although one might note that there is biblical support for marriage as between a man and his wives, so once again these ballot initiatives select one religious belief to impose on everyone); when Nicaragua is congratulated for banning abortion when the pregnancy will absolutely kill the mother because the ban “saves lives”; I don’t see too much difference. Somewhere, the extreme right-wing is studying these movements abroad, decrying them as false religions, and eagerly anticipating implementing them here, with their own special twist.

Suzanne also blogs at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants